Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
This new Hubble image shows a peculiar galaxy known as NGC 660, located around 45 million light-years away from us.
NGC 660 is classified as a "polar ring galaxy",
meaning that it has a belt of gas and stars around its centre that it
ripped from a near neighbour during a clash about one billion years ago.
The first polar ring galaxy was observed in 1978 and only around a
dozen more have been discovered since then, making them something of a
cosmic rarity.
Unfortunately, NGC 660’s polar ring cannot be seen in this image, but
has plenty of other features that make it of interest to astronomers –
its central bulge is strangely off-kilter and, perhaps more
intriguingly, it is thought to harbour exceptionally large amounts of
dark matter. In addition, in late 2012 astronomers observed a massive
outburst emanating from NGC 660 that was around ten times as bright as a
supernova explosion. This burst was thought to be caused by a massive
jet shooting out of the supermassive black hole at the centre of the
galaxy.
Source: ESA/Hubble - Space Telescope
