Double-Ringed Galaxy

Astronomers Discover Incredibly Rare Double-Ringed Galaxy
http://www.iflscience.com/space/astronomers-discover-incredibly-rare-doubleringed-galaxy/
IFLScience
By: Alfredo Carpineti
January 4, 2017

Most galaxies follow a regular pattern in the universe, but there are some who rock a different look. Astronomers have discovered something interesting about one of the galaxies. PGC 1000714 has an elliptical core and is surrounded by two rings. The galaxy belongs to a very rare class and is located 359 million light-years from Earth. The red core of PGC 1000714 is 5.5 billion years old, made by older stars, while the outer ring is full of young stars and is only about 130 million years old. By establishing the age difference, researchers found a diffuse red second inner ring closely surrounding the center of the galaxy. The different colors of the inner and outer rings suggest that the galaxy has been through two different formation periods. Researchers suspect the outer ring formed from the gas of a smaller nearby galaxy that was slowly shredded apart. The origin of the inner ring is still mysterious.

I think this is one of the best things to learn. It shows us that there's still so much of the universe that we don't know about. I love learning new things about the galaxy that scientists have just found out. This is a neutral topic. It doesn't really change everyone's life, but some people might change what they want to be. I wish we could get some higher resolution photos. You don't really get to see the red core or the outer and inner ring, and I would love to see that better. I wonder if scientists could find out more if they had donations from people. Not just on this topic, but for the whole universe. I hope, in the future, that we get higher resolution photos and find out the origin of the inner ring.