The Most Fascinating Galaxies Ever Discovered

 

galaxies are the building blocks of the universe and they come in all sizes some very fascinating shapes have unique features and very intricate details with over 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe scientists and astronomers have identified some truly bizarre galaxies out there think shapes like dolphins tadpoles or even a galaxy named vermin welcome to fact nominal and today we will be taking you on a galactic journey to discover some of the most unusual yet fascinating galaxies that lie beyond our milky way number 10 penguin or porpoise beginning with this interacting spiral galaxy ngc 2936 is located at least 326 million light years away not only is this galaxy absolutely fascinating it's also truly beautiful some have argued that it looks like a dolphin while some say

 it's more like a penguin holding an egg

 but newer images of the galaxy have made it possible to see how much it favors a porpoise the core of the spiral galaxy can be seen as the eye of the dolphin while towards the left you can see what looks like the nose of a dolphin which is really a huge star-forming region it is here that all the new stars light up the region and the surrounding gas and dust which makes it truly striking the ngc 2936 interacts with the more elliptical shaped ngc 2937 and together they form this galactic marvel the galaxy pair is together known as arp-142 the duo are constantly pulling at each other and because of this there has been a disruption in the gas dust and stars which is also distorting its unique form sadly many scientists and astronomers have now estimated that it will eventually lose its porpoise-like shape and transform into just another galaxy in about a billion years give or take we can only wonder what this iconic galaxy may look like number 9 galaxy within a galaxy ring galaxies account for only about 0.01 percent of the known galaxies and are considered extremely rare in the year 1950 arthur hogue chanced upon an odd-looking ring galaxy at first he studied it and declared that it was either a planetary nebula or just a very peculiar shaped galaxy with about 8 billion stars hogue's object in its peculiar shape and formation has been a hot topic of debate but no one truly knows why or how it came to be and the cosmic wonder has befuddled

 astronomers and scientists for years now the center of this galaxy appears to be a ball or cluster of red-colored stars that appear to be much older while the surrounding ring is mostly dominated by an array of bright blue young stars named after its discoverer hoag's object is a sight to behold and has more than likely been formed as a result of an interaction between two galaxies or a galactic merger hogue himself even suggested that the ring-like formation is more of an optical illusion but newer images from the hubble space telescope has disproved that theory and it is possible that a violent collision with a neighboring galaxy has caused this sort of hole in the disk and completely warped its gravitational pull no evidence has been found to prove this theory but it's also possible that it occurred so long ago that any possible evidence was likely wiped away with time hog's object continues to be an enigma and one of the most unusual galaxies discovered to date number eight a galactic tadpole this peculiar galaxy in the shape of what appears to be a tadpole is actually the result of a hit and run collision which has given birth to this oddly fascinating galaxy it is a disrupted barred spiral galaxy located at least 420 million light years from the earth and lies in the northern part of the constellation draco to someone observing this galaxy it seems like an enormous tadpole just floating through space it is also one of the furthest galaxies that we know of the tail of this galaxy is said to be 500 000 light years long to put that into perspective you could say it's about 10 times longer than the milky way astronomers have said that this peculiar galaxy is likely to have formed due to the collision of two disc galaxies being pulled onto a much smaller galaxy thus clumping the stars together so that it looks like the head and leaving behind a long trail which resembles a long tail when you consider it against the vast stunning backdrop of space it looks like this galaxy is in a race as it soars through the sky and leaves behind a trail of stars in its wake eventually though the blue looking stars will turn red as they mature and grow older and the tail will eventually disappear with the stars becoming rogue stars since the tail alone is about 280 000 light years away it's possible that the tail is already gone and the images that we see now show what it possibly looked like 420 million years ago now that's truly mind-blowing number seven the little cub the little cub galaxy is truly unique as it has now opened a new chance for astronomers to observe a more primitive galaxy which could bring scientists closer to more truths about the early universe and answer some questions that have for centuries remained unanswered the galaxy gets its name because it sits in the ursa major which is otherwise called the great bear constellation it is about 50 to 60 million light years away and researchers have suggested that it is one of the few sat forming galaxies in the universe that is very low on metal low metallicity means that it isn't very bright and therefore harder to study what's extremely strange and peculiar about this galaxy though is the fact that it is being stripped of its gas from its own neighbor the giant galaxy right next to it ngc 3359 seems to be taking in all of its gas so it can form more stars now that's galactic cannibalism right there little cub is being watched and studied with fascination but in truth we are all just witnessing its eventual demise as the larger companion completely takes away its fuel so it will stop forming stars a little morbid if you ask me but scientists have said that they are hoping to make some groundbreaking discoveries through this small galaxy and hopefully some insight into the makeup of the early universe number 6 space vermin with a name like vermin you already know this one's going to be a little wily at first glance you will notice that it bears a striking resemblance to a galactic dandelion puff that you'd probably see in the background at an edm concert and less like something in outer space pictures show that the galaxy is

 visible just as a small smudge

 where it begins to seemingly align and

 passes behind a star called hd-107146

 this star has proven to be a very peculiar target of interest as it bears a close resemblance to the sun within our galaxy and astronomers have been itching to study it but the fact there's a galaxy just behind it makes for an interesting yet annoying presence astronomers have given this cosmic body the name vermin for the fact that the light from it gets in the way of them being able to study the closer star in its system so its name came from their annoyance at the fact that it won't let them conduct more studies as opposed to its shape or what it looks like that's too bad because dandelion

 puff would have been a better choice

 number five reuben's galaxy astronomers have now discovered an unusually large spiral galaxy that could quite possibly challenge a lot of things we thought we knew about spiral-shaped galaxies as of now it has unofficially been named as rubin's galaxy after vera rubin's observation of ugc 2885 the galaxy features a spiral structure dusty arms pink signatures of

 ionized hydrogen blue glittering stars along the arms and an undisrupted flat even disc what is truly spectacular is that the formation of this galaxy is thought to be either by gas accretion minor mergers of galaxies or even both it is somewhat of a cosmic rarity and when a study was conducted by a group of researchers using the hubble space telescope they've found more evidence of gradual accretion of gas even the environment surrounding the behemoth galaxy does not have any large structures that could have possibly been the reason for its extended spiral structure reuben's galaxy is truly enormous and it is one of the first galaxies in the universe that is relatively isolated having one stable nucleus and relatively slow star formation it is truly a first of its kind comparable only to the pinwheel galaxy and there may not be another quite like it number 4 the hidden galaxy one of the most mysterious of them all the hidden galaxy also called ic342 it is proven to be a difficult target to see and study lying just near the equator of the milky way's disk here the sky is very thick with cosmic ass bright stars and a whole lot of dust making it difficult to see this spiral-shaped galaxy the galaxy is said to be only 10.7 million light years away from earth which is relatively closer to us than the others the colorful images of the galaxy prove that it is actively producing stars and could possibly be one of the brightest in the sky but it is so hard to actually spot it's not easy to tell the fact that we are unable to fully study and observe this galaxy even though it is very near to us just like the andromeda and the triangulum galaxy but much larger than them just adds to the intrigue recent hubble photos have even shown how bright it is against the dark sky glittering like diamonds with some reddish cloud formations the hidden galaxy is certainly an unusual galaxy that we hope to learn more about number three cosmic yeti the discovery of this galaxy was one of the most exciting finds for astronomers and scientists as this monstrous galaxy happens to be very very old at first it was extremely difficult for

 the scientists to make out the old galaxy because it seemed to almost be hidden and also not having any light that was linked to any known galaxy upon further observation and close study they soon discovered that this is in fact a galaxy and a very mature one calculations have shown that light from the galaxy took about 12.5 billion years to reach planet earth which means that this galaxy could possibly have been formed roughly about 2 billion years after the big bang this strange space yeti as it is fondly being called is so much more than some cool new discovery but could potentially answer some really big questions in cosmology that have been plaguing us for years it is said to be huge and monstrous and could possibly be shooting out new stars at 100 times the rate of the milky way for years this galaxy has been hidden right there amidst the dust and debris of space but now that we know it's there astronomers are hopeful that the james webb telescope will be able to peer through the dust veil and allow us to learn how big this galaxy really is and how fast it's growing number 2 space candy in terms of the galaxies nc 2336 happens to have it all it is the perfect trifecta it's big beautiful and blue it has been given the title of the most beautiful galaxy ever discovered and we can't really disagree images from the hubble telescope clearly show the beauty and sheer extravagance of this barred spiral galaxy stretching out about 200 000 light years across and 100 million light years away in the constellation of camilo pardales it's safe to say that if space had its very own beauty contest this galaxy would be the clear winner it's not the biggest galaxy ever discovered but it definitely leans towards the larger side with large spiral arms adorned with young stars each visible with their luminous blue light it's not hard to know why this galaxy is so special and stands out among the rest at the center of the galaxy the reddish color comes from the older stars german astronomer wilhelm temple discovered it back in 1876 and named it the quintessential galaxy using only an 11-inch telescope too bad that it's so far away that even if we were able to make a spaceship that could travel at the speed of light it would take us at least 100 million years to reach this galaxy in other words not even our ancestors were alive at the time that the light reaching earth from this galaxy today was emitted by the galaxy number one the weird neighbor it's almost unheard of that larger galaxies could be both elliptical and spiral at the same time but then again space is a strange place and centaurus a proves just that this odd galaxy lies in the constellation of centaurus from which it derives its name and happens to be just 12 million light years away from earth centaurus a is filled with thick dust as seen in the images of the dark energy camera in chile images reveal the warping in its disk and its magnetic fields which seem to point towards the fact that it may have had a massive collision with another galaxy in the past which has left its mark on centaurus a it has a massive active black hole right in the center which to put into perspective is about 55 million times the mass of the sun in fact the black hole has its very own colossal jets expanding about thousands of light years into space as it actively devours whatever material comes near it these plasma jets are so bright and because it's so close to earth it's very impressive to observe and convenient to study discovered way back in the year 1826 it is still actively being studied to this day as there is still lots of debate on the galaxy's fundamental properties what's really cool too is the fact that it has its very own dwarf galaxies orbiting around it similar to how the planets orbit around the sun in our galaxy we may actually have a lot more in common with centaurus a than we thought i often wonder if there are some species on centaurus a eagerly reading earth well as long as this galaxy doesn't plan on chowing down on the milky way any time soon it's totally fine with me so what do you think which of these galaxies is your favorite do you know any other unusual ones let us know in the comments please like and share the article and don't forget to subscribe to our channel for more articles like this thanks for reading we'll see you next time