NASA telescope captures rare galaxy collision in ‘serendipitous discovery’
manchestereveningnews.co.ukNASA’s Hubble telescope has captured a spectacular image of a galaxy that looks like a ‘Bullseye’. The so-called Bullseye was formed by a rare space collision between a tiny blue dwarf galaxy and another massive galaxy around 50 million years ago.
The galaxy, known officially as LEDA 1313424, is two and a half times the size of our own Milky Way galaxy and smashes the record for the most rings astronomers have ever seen.
Bullseye is named so because of its nine star-filled rings that “ripple” out from its centre – six more than any other known galaxy.
Spectacularly, NASA scientists believe the rings were formed after the tiny galaxy plunged into its centre like a dart through a Bullseye, leaving pond-like ripples. “This was a serendipitous discovery,” said Imad Pasha, the lead researcher at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. “I was looking at a ground-based imaging survey and when I saw a galaxy with several clear rings, I was immediately drawn to it.
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