Spotted by a team of astronomers from the Arc Center of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3D, the galaxy R5519 is located 10.8 billion light-years from Earth
R5519 is similar to a giant donut with a huge hole drilled right in the center. This classifies it as a rare type of known as a rare ring galaxy. Its shape is not forged by internal processes, but by a collision that saw its core torn away as it “passed” the other galaxy. R5519 is the first collisional ring galaxy found more than a few hundred light-years away, making it the only such object known in the early Universe. The research was published in Nature Astronomy.
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Its characteristics
The outer edge of R5519’s ring is quite large (about 42,400 light-years). The hole in the middle is about 17,612 light years long, with no detectable trace of the bulge full of stars (bulge) that normally fills a galactic center. And there are clues that suggest a violent past. Some ring galaxies appear to have had relatively peaceful formations, produced by processes such as the orbital resonance o the accumulation of material from another nearby galaxy. R5519 shows a high rate of star formation in its ring: about 80 new solar masses of new stars are born every year. This is indicative of a gravitational disruption: for example, another galaxy piercing it, sending density waves propagating radially outward.
As these waves push and condense gas and dust in the galaxy, star formation is triggered by facilitating the gravitational collapse of clumps of dust that transform into small stars. In the local universe, ring galaxies of this type are extremely rare: 1,000 times rarer than ring-shaped ones formed by less violent processes.
An opportunity to study the Milky Way
R5519 offers the opportunity to study the formation of disk galaxies like the because, to form a ring, simulations suggest the galaxy had to be a thin disk before being punctured.
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