Spiral galaxy IC 342, also known as Caldwell 5, is about 11 million light-years away from earth. Hubble captured a glittering front view of the galaxy's center Intertwined scrolls of dust can be seen in the picture. In addition, a bright core composed of hot gas and stars is surprisingly eye-catching.
It is understood that this core is a special type of region called H II nucleus - a region of ionized atomic hydrogen. Such regions are the energy birthplaces of stars, which can form thousands of stars in millions of years. Every young, extremely hot, blue star emits ultraviolet light, which further ionizes the surrounding hydrogen.
Although the galaxy has relatively bright 8.4 stars, it is not prominent in the sky. It appears near the equator of the Pearl disk of the Milky Way galaxy, which is crowded with thick cosmic gas, dark dust and luminous stars, which block our sight. This earned Caldwell 5 the nickname "hidden Galaxy".
If not obscured by so much interstellar material, hidden galaxies would be one of the brightest galaxies in our sky. This is a relatively close galaxy, about 50000 light-years wide and billions of years old.