74 ASTRONOMY • APRIL 2020
BREAKTHROUGH
A LOCAL GROUP DOPPELGÄNGER
Dark dust lanes mingle with bright star clusters and glowing gas clouds in the large spiral galaxy NGC 3175. Along with
its spiral neighbor, NGC 3137 (which lies well outside this Hubble Space Telescope field), the two island universes anchor
a group of about 50 galaxies located 50 million light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Antlia. Known as the
NGC 3175 group, this collection looks remarkably similar to our Local Group, where the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies
dominate an assembly of some 50 systems, most of which are dwarf or irregular galaxies. By studying such Local Group
analogues, astronomers hope to better understand our own galactic neighborhood. ESA/HUBBLE AND NASA, D. ROSARIO ET AL.