Ring Around NGC 4650A
Depicts: NGC 4650A, The Polar Ring Galaxy
Copyright: The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA)
Located about 130 million light-years away, NGC 4650A is one of only 100 known polar-ring galaxies. Their unusual disk-ring structure is not yet understood fully. One possibility is that polar rings are the remnants of colossal collisions between two galaxies sometime in the distant past, probably at least 1 billion years ago. What is left of one galaxy has become the rotating inner disk of old red stars in the center.
Last Update: 1 September 2019
