The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a rare galaxy collision that resembles an arrow firing into a bullseye. A smaller blue dwarf galaxy collided with the enormous LEDA 1313424 galaxy, leaving behind nine star-filled rings surrounding the galaxy.
Researchers at Yale University discovered the “Bullseye Galaxy” while analyzing a ground-based imaging survey. They used the Hubble Space Telescope to get a closer look and confirmed the existence of eight additional rings using the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii.
The blue dwarf galaxy shot through the heart of the larger galaxy 50 million years ago, leaving behind rippling rings separated by a distance of 130,000 light-years. The team observed that individual stars’ orbits were largely undisturbed but groups of stars accumulated over millions of years to form the rings.
This rare event is helping astronomers learn more about galaxy collisions and their role in the evolution of galaxies. The findings support long-standing theoretical models, which predicted that such a collision would result in multiple ring-like structures forming around the central galaxy.
The discovery provides valuable insights into the dynamics of galaxy interactions and can be used to improve models showing how galaxies will continue to evolve over billions of years.
Source: https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/news/bullseye-galaxy