Imma Perfetto
Cosmos science journalist
Astronomers have discovered a massive galaxy, LEDA 1313424, with the most rings ever seen.
The ring galaxy, which is 2.5 times larger than the Milky Way, has been nicknamed “the Bullseye”.
A relatively tiny blue dwarf galaxy punched straight through its centre about 50 million years ago and, like a stone dropped into a pond, left behind ripples in its wake.
A thin trail of gas now links the pair, which are currently separated by 130,000 light-years.
“We’re catching the Bullseye at a very special moment in time,” says Pieter van Dokkum, professor of astronomy and physics at Yale University in the US and co-author of an article presenting the findings in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
“There’s a very narrow window after the impact when a galaxy like this would have so many rings.”
They used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to identify 8 visible rings and confirmed the existence of a 9th using data from the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii.
The team suspects a 10th ring also existed but has faded and is no longer detectable. They estimate it might lie 3 times farther out than the widest ring in Hubble’s image.
Previous observations of other ring galaxies have only shown a maximum of only 2 or 3 rings.
