Astronomers have discovered a collection of tiny galaxies located roughly 3 million light-years away that includes the smallest and faintest galaxy ever seen.

"These are fully functional galaxies, but they're about a millionth of the size of the Milky Way," team member and University of Michigan professor Eric Bell said in a statement. "It's like having a perfectly functional human being that's the size of a grain of rice."

This galaxy, designated Andromeda XXXV, and its compatriots orbiting our neighbor galaxy, Andromeda, could change how we think about cosmic evolution.