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Cloud 9, Starless Gas Cloud

A region of space mostly filled with background galaxies, with one prominent star at upper left. A large blob of purple haze occupies much of the field. Within the purple region, an unremarkable area is outlined with a dashed white circle.

This image shows the location of Cloud-9, which is 14 million light-years from Earth. The diffuse magenta is radio data from the ground-based Very Large Array (VLA) showing the presence of the cloud. The dashed circle marks the peak of radio emission, which is where researchers focused their search for stars. Follow-up observations by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys found no stars within the cloud. The few objects that appear within its boundaries are background galaxies. Before the Hubble observations, scientists could argue that Cloud-9 is a faint dwarf galaxy whose stars could not be seen with ground-based telescopes due to the lack of sensitivity. Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys shows that, in reality, the failed galaxy contains no stars.

About the Object

  • R.A. Position
    R.A. PositionRight ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position.
    12:51:51.33
  • Dec. Position
    Dec. PositionDeclination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position.
    +40:18:05.46
  • Constellation
    ConstellationOne of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears.
    Ursa Major
  • Distance
    DistanceThe physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs.
    About 14 million light-years
  • Dimensions
    DimensionsThe physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky.
    Image is 2.4 arcmin across (about 10,000 light-years)

About the Data

  • Data Description
    Data DescriptionProposal: A description of the observations, their scientific justification, and the links to the data available in the science archive.
    Science Team: The astronomers who planned the observations and analyzed the data. "PI" refers to the Principal Investigator.

    The Hubble observations include those from program 17712 (A. Benitez-Llambay)

  • Instrument
    InstrumentThe science instrument used to produce the data.
    ACS/WFC
  • Exposure Dates
    Exposure DatesThe date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time.
    February 17-19, 2025
  • Filters
    FiltersThe camera filters that were used in the science observations.
    F606W, F814W
  • Object Name
    Object NameA name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object.
    Cloud-9
  • Object Description
    Object DescriptionThe type of astronomical object.
    Starless gas cloud
  • Release Date
    January 5, 2026
  • Science Release
    NASA’s Hubble Examines Cloud-9, First of New Type of Object
    Read the release
  • Credit
    Science: NASA, ESA, VLA, Gagandeep Anand (STScI), Alejandro Benitez-Llambay (University of Milano-Bicocca); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Downloads

  • Full Res (For Display), 2914 × 1790
    png (6.98 MB)
  • Full Res (For Print), 2914 × 1790
    tif (6.72 MB)
  • Full Res (JPG), 2914 × 1790
    jpg (1.21 MB)
  • 2000 × 1229
    jpg (543.94 KB)
  • Hubble Only Unannotated - Full Res (For Display), 2914 × 1790
    png (7.43 MB)
  • Hubble Only Unannotated - Full Res (For Print), 2914 × 1790
    tif (8.07 MB)
  • Hubble Only Unannotated - Full Res (JPG), 2914 × 1790
    jpg (1.43 MB)
  • Hubble Only Unannotated, 2000 × 1229
    jpg (634.77 KB)
A region of space mostly filled with background galaxies, with one prominent star at upper left. A large blob of purple haze occupies much of the field. Within the purple region, an unremarkable area is outlined with a dashed white circle.
Color Info
Color InfoA brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented.

These images were acquired by the ACS Instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to a monochromatic (grayscale) image. In this case, the assigned colors are: Cyan: F606W, Orange: F814W

Compass and Scale
Compass and ScaleAn astronomical image with a scale that shows how large an object is on the sky, a compass that shows how the object is oriented on the sky, and the filters with which the image was made.

Related Images & Videos

An image labeled u201cCloud 9 HST ACS WFCu201d. Below that, a color key shows F606W in blue, F814W in orange, and Radio VLA in purple. A region of space mostly filled with background galaxies, with one prominent star at upper left. A large blob of purple haze occupies much of the field. Within the purple region, an unremarkable area is outlined with a dashed white circle. At lower left, a scale bar extending about one-sixth of the image is labeled 2,000 light-years and 30 arcseconds. At lower right are compass arrows with east pointing to 10 ou2019clock and north pointing to 2 ou2019clock.

Cloud 9, Starless Gas Cloud Compass Image

This is an annotated composite image of Cloud-9, a Reionization-Limited H I Cloud (RELHIC), as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope’s ACS (Advanced Camera for Surveys) and the ground-based Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope.

A region of space mostly filled with background galaxies, with one prominent star at upper left. A large blob of purple haze occupies much of the field. Within the purple region, an unremarkable area is outlined with a dashed white circle.

Cloud 9, Starless Gas Cloud Video

This annotated video shows the location of Cloud-9 on the sky. As the video zooms into this gas-rich, dark-matter cloud, it becomes evident that there are no stars within it. Only background galaxies appear behind Cloud-9, which has survived since the universe’s early days....

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Details

Last Updated
Jan 05, 2026
Location
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Contact
Media

Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov

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