An anomaly from Hubble’s archive — Unknown object

This is a previously-undiscovered astrophysical anomaly, found in the Hubble Space Telescope’s archive by researchers using a new AI-assisted method. The AI tool allowed them to sift through nearly 100 million image cutouts in just days, turning up rare and anomalous objects like this one.

The strange, bi-polar galaxy seen here is certainly anomalous, with its compact, swirling core and two open lobes at the sides. Exactly what kind of galaxy it is is unclear, and it was not previously known to astronomers. It’s an example of the kinds of new and unusual finds that can be made by AI-assisted data processing, even from well-known datasets.

Read more about this new research here.

[Image description: A small image of a galaxy. Its centre is a small disc containing blotches of light. Two arcs of light come out from the top, one curving around to the left and the other to the right, both then rejoining the galaxy at the bottom creating a lobe on each side. Light from some other object just enters the frame at the top-right.]