Hubble telescope spies mysterious celestial object that defies classification

Z 229-15 — imaged here in beautiful detail by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope — a celestial object that lies about 390 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra.  (Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Barth, R. Mushotzky)

Space is hard, the adage goes. And we'd extrapolate that sentiment to the classification of celestial objects, particularly ones like Z 229-15.

A newly released image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows Z 229-15, which, at first glance, simply appears to be a spiral galaxy, given its two spiraling arms of stars emanating from a bright core. But it's far, far more than that.