Some 2,000 light-years across, NGC 1705 is small as galaxies go,similar to our Milky Way's own satellite galaxies the Magellanic Clouds.At a much larger distance of 17 million light-years, th starsof NGC 1705 are still easily resolved i this beautiful imageconstructed from data taken in 1999 and 2000 with the Hubble SpaceTelescope.Most of the younger, hot, bluestars in the galaxy areseen to be concentrated in a large central star cluster with th older, cooler,red stars more evenly distributed.Possibly 13 billion years old NGC 1705 could well have beenforming stars through out its lifetime while light from its most recentburst of star formation reached Earth only 30 million years ago.This gradually evolving dwarf irregular galaxylack organized structures like spiral arms andis thought tobe a nearby analog to th firstgalaxies to formin the early Universe.
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