Hoag's Object: A Nearly Perfect Ring Galaxy

Posted on February 19, 2024  •  1 minutes  • 143 words

Is this one galaxy or two? This question came to light in 1950 when astronomerchanced upon this unusual extragalactic object. On the outside is a dominated by bright blue stars,while near the center lies a ball of much redder starsthat are likely much older. Between the two is a that appears almost completely dark. How formed, including its nearly of stars and gas, remains unknown. Genesis hypotheses include abillions of years ago and the gravitational effect of a that has.The was taken by theand reprocessed using an . Observations in indicate that has accreted a smaller galaxy in the past billion years. spans about 100,000 and lies about 600 million away toward the of the Snake(). Many galaxies far in the distance are visible toward the right, while , visible in the gap at about seven o’clock, is another but more distant .