Cartwheel Galaxy ESO350-40
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The Cartwheel Galaxy is part of galaxy group about 500 million ly away in the constellation Sculptor. The galaxy displays an impressive ring-like structure 100,000 ly across, illuminated by young blue supergiants. This shape is the result of the gravitational disruption caused by a small intruder galaxy passing directly through the larger large one, compressing the interstellar gas and dust, and causing a wave of star formation to move out from the impact point like a ripple across the surface of a pond.
High resolution radio observations reveals a trail of neutral hydrogen leading to the small galaxy in the top middle of the image, which is therefore assumed to be the intruder. | |||||||||||||||
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