A team of international researchers recently discovered a galaxy with nine rings. They called it “studying” because the previous ring galaxies showed only two or three rings at best.
The team used the Hubble Space Telescope to confirm the existence of eight rings, while data from the WM Keck Observatory in Hawaii confirmed the existence of the ninth ring.
This unusual galaxy is named Leda 1313424, but its common name is even more memorable: Bullseye Galaxy. A story about how its ring is formed may make it more memorable.
A lot of evidence
When the researchers analyzed data from the space telescope and observatory, they found signs that the blue dwarf galaxy located on the left and right sides of the image had passed through the Bullseye Galaxy center about 50 million years ago. They say the interaction gives the bull galaxy a unique shape.
As evidence of this interaction, the team reported that even though two galaxies were separated by 130,000 light-years (or 1.22 billion kilometers), they connected the two galaxies. Considering that the Bulls-eye Milky Way has a diameter of 250,000 light-years, this is 2.5 times larger than the Milky Way.
On the cosmic time scale, galaxies collapse or miss each other relatively frequently. But even then, it was rare for one galaxy to dart through another. The diameter of the blue dwarf galaxy through the bullseye galaxy makes the latter rippling back and forth in the waves, creating a new place for star formation. This interaction does not change the orbits of individual stars, but instead causes clusters of stars to accumulate and form different rings over millions of years.
The Bullseye Galaxy will continue to develop, so there will be rings of these stars only in a short period of time. This means that astronomers have captured interesting images of multi-ring galaxies at special moments.
However, for other astronomers, the conspiracy may be deeper: the oxhorn Milky Way also contains signs that it may one day evolve into a massive low-surface brightness (GLSB) galaxy, which is important for dark matter research.
Their discovery Published In February Astrophysical Diary Letter.
Odd numbers in the universe
Low-surface brightness galaxies have shorter elements than hydrogen and helium. Despite having large hydrogen disks, their star formation is also very little, the main fuel for new stars. Scientists cannot explain this paradox. These galaxies are also considered to be full of dark matter, making it an excellent target for research if scientists want to understand this still-existing form of matter.
These galaxies also have a more uniform mass distribution near their centers, which, contrary to the standard model of cosmology, predicts that galaxy centers will be more dense. This difference is another challenge scientists are trying to overcome with more data and better theories.
Huge low surface brightness (GLSB) galaxies are the largest among low surface brightness galaxies. All GLSB galaxies are truly huge. Their most famous member is called Malin 1, about 6.5 times wider than one of the Milky Way’s galaxies and largest spiral galaxies.
“GLSB galaxies are spiral galaxies with very dispersed or low surface density stellar disks, but they are embedded in large neutral hydrogen disks,” said Mousumi Das, a professor at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics.
She added that the black holes at the center of these galaxies are also lower than usual, meaning they have not fully evolved.
Given the various ways in which LSBs deviate from the mode of uniting other galaxies, astronomers have been working to understand them. Their simulations are based on standard models of cosmology, predicting the hydrogen content of these galaxies, the surface brightness of the disk, and their density curves—just let them see with the data collected by telescopes and observations.
In science, this disagreement means that scientific theories are somewhat incomplete.
There are some ideas to resolve the differences. Darth proposes An example:: “Previous studies have shown that the black halos around these galaxies rotate faster than expected,” she said. “The performance of clay on the wheels of rotating pottery. As the wheel turns, clay spreads and spreads in the same way. These dark halogens rotate rapidly, and they rotate inside them, spin out, and take on a huge shape, eventually forming a lower shape.
“And their disks are not dense enough to easily form stars.”
Studying the GLSB galaxy in more detail may help check whether this idea and other similar ideas may be correct.
This, in turn, has led to confirmation whether newly discovered galaxies like Bullseye may be more important GLSB galaxies in the future.
New insights
International researchers report that the expansion disk and hydrogen content of the Niuke Galaxy are comparable in size to other GLSB galaxies relative to its excellent mass and may become one in the future. But in their paper, they also cautiously added that more analysis is still needed.
“The transition from an orbiting galaxy to a GLSB galaxy is still a theory being explored,” DAS said, “Past simulations suggest that some GLSB galaxies may have been formed due to frontal collisions between disk galaxies,” as was the case with Bullseye Galaxy. But she also said that most GLSB galaxies were found in isolation – i.e., surrounded by other nearby galaxies, so they were less likely to experience such collisions.
In other words, confirming the candidate qualification of a cowboy is complicated to be a former GLSB galaxy.
The tenth ring?
Currently, astronomers have the opportunity to obtain the first direct observation that the collision ring of the Milky Way becomes a GLSB galaxy.
DAS expressed optimism because she said the new study provides compelling evidence of the evolutionary link between the Bulls-eye Milky Way and the GLSB galaxy.
The authors of the new study also said that the ox-horned Milky Way had gradually disappeared. They added that billions of years after the collision, nine rings will also slowly drift and disappear, leaving behind the GLSB galaxy.
DAS added that more information about the formation of GLSB galaxies could reveal new insights into the distribution of dark matter in the universe. Finally, “If it is [current] The theoretical model is correct and we should see GLSB-like galaxies in the results of cosmological simulations. ”
Shreejaya Karantha is a freelance science writer, content writer and research expert The Secret of the Universe.
publishing – April 22, 2025 05:30 AM IST
