Ring Around NGC 4650A
Space Telescope Science Institute astronomers are giving the public chances to decide where to aim the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Guided by 8, 000 Internet voters, Hubble has already been used to take a close-up, multi-color picture of the most popular object from a list of candidates, the extraordinary 'polar-ring' galaxy NGC 4650A.
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.
Credit:
About the Image
NASA caption
| Id: | opo9916a |
| Type: | Observation |
| Release date: | 6 May 1999, 06:00 |
| Size: | 683 x 1462 px |
About the Object
| Name: | NGC 4650A, Polar Ring Galaxy |
| Type: | • Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Ring • Galaxies Images/Videos |
| Distance: | 150 million light years |
Colours & filters
| Band | Wavelength | Telescope |
| Optical B |
450 nm | Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 |
| Optical V |
606 nm | Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 |
| Infrared I |
814 nm | Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 |
