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Judi Lynn

(160,217 posts)
Tue May 26, 2020, 04:50 AM May 2020

Astronomers captured a super-rare type of galaxy

Astronomers see ‘cosmic ring of fire’, 11 billion years ago.

BY
AMIT MALEWAR
MAY 26, 2020



An artist’s impression of how the ring galaxy formed. Credit: James Josephides, Swinburne Astronomy Productions

Astronomers have seen a very curious object that they never saw before. They recently captured an image of a super-rare type of galaxy named R5519, which lies 11 billion light-years from the Solar System.

The galaxy with the mass similar to the Milky Way, has a shape of a ring, rather like a titanic doughnut; thus astronomers dubbed it as a “cosmic ring of fire.” Its disclosure is set to stir up hypotheses about the earliest formation of galactic structures and how they develop.

It appears as a circle with a truly massive hole in the middle, with a diameter two billion times longer than the distance between the Earth and the Sun. In other words, it is three million times bigger than the diameter of the supermassive black hole in the galaxy Messier 87.

Dr. Tiantian Yuan, from Australia’s ARC Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), said, “It is making stars at a rate 50 times greater than the Milky Way. Most of that activity is taking place on its ring – so it truly is a ring of fire.”

More:
https://www.techexplorist.com/astronomers-captured-super-rare-type-galaxy/32531/

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Astronomers captured a super-rare type of galaxy (Original Post) Judi Lynn May 2020 OP
A 'cosmic ring of fire' of 11 billion years ago Judi Lynn May 2020 #1
The link has the observation processed image as well as the artist's impression video. nt 4dog May 2020 #5
A challenge to wrap your mind around that. 2naSalit May 2020 #2
Obligatory... LudwigPastorius May 2020 #3
Wow! Something new all the time! Karadeniz May 2020 #4
New - 11 billion years ago. keithbvadu2 May 2020 #6

Judi Lynn

(160,217 posts)
1. A 'cosmic ring of fire' of 11 billion years ago
Tue May 26, 2020, 04:59 AM
May 2020

26 May 2020

Nick Carne

Astronomers say rare galaxy will shake up a few theories.



Astronomers have observed a rare galaxy type as it existed 11 billion years ago, and this, they say, is likely to shake up theories about the earliest formation of galactic structures and how they evolve.

Shaped like a gigantic doughnut and described as a “cosmic ring of fire”, galaxy R5519 is roughly the mass of the Milky Way and 11 billion light-years away. Evidence suggests it is a collisional ring galaxy, which would make it the first ever located in the early Universe.

“Contrary to previous predictions, this work suggests that massive collisional rings were as rare 11 Gyr ago as they are today,” the researchers write in a paper in the journal Nature Astronomy.

“Our discovery offers a unique pathway for studying density waves in young galaxies, as well as constraining the cosmic evolution of spiral disks and galaxy groups.”

R5519 is a “very curious object”, says lead researcher Tiantian Yuan from Australia’s ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) – it “looks strange and familiar at the same time”.

More:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/astronomy/a-cosmic-ring-of-fire-from-11-billion-years-ago/

2naSalit

(86,054 posts)
2. A challenge to wrap your mind around that.
Tue May 26, 2020, 09:52 AM
May 2020

Wow! Sounds like the Smith Manufacturing Company, where all the Smiths come from.

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