This Week's Where In The Universe Challenge

By Nancy Atkinson - May 06, 2009 02:16 PM UTC | Extragalactic

It's time once again for another Where In The Universe Challenge. Test your visual knowledge of the cosmos by naming where in the Universe this image was taken and give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for this picture. Post your guesses in the comments section, and check back on Thursday at this same post to find the answer. To make this challenge fun for everyone, please don't include links or extensive explanations with your answer. Good luck!

Update: the answer has now been posted below.

Ah, yes: this is, in fact, the Tadpole galaxy, taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope. The Tadpole is a disrupted barred spiral galaxy located 400 million light years from Earth, located in the constellation Draco. Its "tail" is about 280 thousand light-years long.

For more info on this image, check out

JPL's Photojournal page.

Check back next week for another WITU challenge!

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com