LEDA 1313424: The Bullseye Galaxy

LEDA 1313424: The Bullseye Galaxy

Image Credit:

NASA,
ESA,
Imad Pasha (Yale), Pieter van Dokkum (Yale)

Explanation:

The giant galaxy
cataloged as LEDA 1313424 is about two and a half times
the size of our own Milky Way.

Its remarkable appearance in this
recently released Hubble
Space Telescope image strongly suggests its
nickname “The Bullseye Galaxy”.

Known as a collisional ring galaxy it has
nine rings
confirmed by telescopic observations,
rippling
from its center like waves from a pebble dropped into a pond.

Of course, the pebble dropped into the Bullseye galaxy was a galaxy
itself.

Telescopic observations identify the blue dwarf galaxy at center-left
as the likely collider, passing through the giant galaxy’s
center and forming concentric rings in the wake of their
gravitational interaction.

The Bullseye Galaxy lies some 567 million light-years away toward the
constellation Pisces.

At that distance,
this stunning Hubble image would span about 530,000
light-years.