At the centre of this amazing image is the elliptical galaxy NGC 3610.
Surrounding the galaxy are a wealth of other galaxies of all shapes.
There are spiral galaxies, galaxies with a bar in their central regions,
distorted galaxies and elliptical galaxies, all visible in the
background. In fact, almost every bright dot in this image is a galaxy —
the few foreground stars are clearly distinguishable due to the diffraction spikes that overlay their images.
NGC
3610 is of course the most prominent object in this image — and a very
interesting one at that! Discovered in 1793 by William Herschel, it was
later found that this elliptical galaxy contains a disc. This is very
unusual, as discs are one of the main distinguishing features of a
spiral galaxy. And NGC 3610 even hosts a memarkable bright disc.
The
reason for the peculiar shape of NGC 3610 stems from its formation
history. When galaxies form, they usually resemble our galaxy, the Milky
Way, with flat discs and spiral arms where star formation rates are
high and which are therefore very bright. An elliptical galaxy is a much
more disordered object which results from the merging of two or more
disc galaxies. During these violent mergers most of the internal
structure of the original galaxies is destroyed. The fact that NGC 3610
still shows some structure in the form of a bright disc implies that it
formed only a short time ago. The galaxy’s age has been put at around
four billion years and it is an important object for studying the early
stages of evolution in elliptical galaxies.
Source: ESA/Hubble - Space Telescope
