One galaxy, two asteroids
Image: At first sight, this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope portrays the sparkling stars of AGC111977, a dwarf galaxy located around 15 million light years away and visible in the lower left part of the image. Other galaxies appear sprinkled across the frame, along with foreground stars from our own galaxy, the Milky Way.After closer inspection, something else comes to sight, much closer to home. Towards the lower right corner of the frame, two elongated streaks are faintly visible: the trails of asteroids – small rocky bodies in our Solar System – crossing their ways in the foreground of the stars and galaxies that Hubble was observing.The image combines observations obtained on 16 November 2012 with Hubble’s ACS instrument using two different filters (606 nm, shown in blue, and 814 nm, shown in red). As the asteroids moved relative to Hubble during the observation, both trails have been imaged...