Giant fiery doughnut-shaped galaxy found 11 billion light-years away

31 May 2020

Giant fiery doughnut-shaped galaxy found 11 billion light-years away

Giant fiery doughnut-shaped galaxy found 11 billion light-years awayRecently, a team of astronomers have discovered a new galaxy called R5519, which looks like a "giant, fiery doughnut".

This extremely rare "cosmic ring of fire" is 11 billion light-years away from our solar system.

What did they find out about this rare galaxy?

R5519 has a similar mass to our Milky Way but is shaped like a doughnut with a hole in the middle.
 	The hole at its centre has a diameter 2 billion times longer than the distance between Earth and the Sun!
 	Scientists say that R5519 is making stars at a rate 50 times greater than the Milky Way.
 	They say that it is the first-ever “collisional ring galaxy” located in the early universe. It took this shape after a massive collision between two galaxies.
 	Astronomers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) were able to capture an image of the galaxy.
 	The image shows us what R5519 looked like 11 billion years ago. This is because R5519 is situated so far away that its light took a very very long time to reach Earth. So what we are seeing now is what it looked like 11 billion years ago.

This discovery can change the way scientists and researchers understand the formation and evolution of galaxies.

To find the galaxy, scientists used data from the WM Keck Observatory in Hawaii and images recorded by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1265024845072474113

Recommended for Secondary Grades

Recently, a team of astronomers have discovered a new galaxy called R5519, which looks like a “giant, fiery doughnut”. This extremely rare “cosmic ring of […]

To read more...

Share your comment! Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

To post your comment Login/Signup