File:Hubble Sees a Bizarre Cosmic Rarity (11241869426).jpg

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This new Hubble image shows a peculiar galaxy known as NGC 660, located around 45 million light-years away from us.

NGC 660 is classified as a "polar ring galaxy," meaning that it has a belt of gas and stars around its center that it ripped from a near neighbor during a clash about one billion years ago.The first polar ring galaxy was observed in 1978 and only around a dozen more have been discovered since then, making them something of a cosmic rarity.

Unfortunately, NGC 660’s polar ring cannot be seen in this image, but the image has plenty of other features that make it of interest to astronomers – its central bulge is strangely off-kilter and, perhaps more intriguingly, it is thought to harbor exceptionally large amounts of dark matter. In addition, in late 2012 astronomers observed a massive outburst emanating from NGC 660 that was around ten times as bright as a supernova explosion. This burst was thought to be caused by a massive jet shooting out of the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy.

Credit: Hubble/NASA/European Space Agency

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Source Hubble Sees a Bizarre Cosmic Rarity
Author NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from Greenbelt, MD, USA

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This image was originally posted to Flickr by NASA Goddard Photo and Video at https://flickr.com/photos/24662369@N07/11241869426. It was reviewed on 17 September 2016 by FlickreviewR and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0.

17 September 2016

Public domain This file is in the public domain in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.)
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current20:49, 17 September 2016Thumbnail for version as of 20:49, 17 September 20161,280 × 1,065 (485 KB)Vanished Account Byeznhpyxeuztibuo (talk | contribs)Transferred from Flickr via Flickr2Commons

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