Hovering on our cosmic doorstep is a weird little galaxy — something that looks way too young to live in our neighborhood. Just 39 million light-years away, dwarf galaxy DDO 68 appears primordial in composition and shape.

But is it?

The gossamer mass of stars and gas hasn’t yet coalesced into an identifiable structure, such as a spiral or an ellipse. And its elemental composition is simple, resembling that of the much younger universe. (As an aside, I would strongly recommend visiting the full-size Hubble Space Telescope image and swimming through that amazing sea of stars and background galaxies.)

Normally, such newborn galaxies aren’t found within a billion light-years from home. It takes a long time for