Two is better than one, especially when it comes to space.
Astronomers studying gas halos in galaxies thought they were looking at images of a single subject, but as it turns out, the photos actually show two perfectly aligned galaxies. Scientists found the hidden galaxy by combining radio and infrared data from three telescopes.
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None of the three machines used could have detected the hidden galaxy alone, but when combined, scientists were able to study it.
"We're getting a nice scientific reward from the unexpected discovery of the background galaxy," Judith Irwin, an astronomy professor at Queen's University in Canada, said in a statement. Irwin is part of the international team that is studying the halos.
The closer spiral galaxy, named UGC 10288, is about 100 million light-years away, Science Daily reported. The farther galaxy is nearly 7 billion light-years away.
"This changed the picture, quite literally," Irwin said. "It changed our understanding of the characteristics of UGC 10288, but also gave us an unexpected new tool for learning more about that galaxy,"
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Homepage image: Flickr, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center