Fifteen Strange Galaxies (That We Know About)
There is a lot going on in space; collisions, competitions, death, birth, disaster and renewal. And that's just talking about the galaxies. No two galaxies are the same, and we've gathered the fifteen most bizarre ones right here. Read and be amazed at what a weird universe we live in (remember: there's a lot that we don't know about yet!). Want to know more about space? Learn all about the beautiful Swan Nebula.
This article first appeared on Live Science.
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The jellyfish galaxy
This galaxy, called ESO 137-001, looks a lot like a jellyfish swimming in starry water. It's located in the Triangulum Australe constellation, and it is a barred spiral galaxy, with streamers of stars that make it appear to have tentacles.
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The non-existent galaxy
You are looking at a galaxy with almost no dark matter. Dark matter is a type of matter that interacts with gravity (but not light) and it makes up more of the matter in the universe than anything else. So when the Hubble Space Telescope discovered that this galaxy had a tiny amount of dark matter, scientists were baffled. The mystery was later solved when experts realized that the galaxy is around 42 million light years away, not 65 million light years like initially though. This change in distance alters the calculations and it turns out that NGC 1052-DF2 is just another average galaxy.
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The zombie galaxy
This is MACS 2129-1 and it's a dead galaxy. That means stars do not form there (they haven't formed for 10 billion years). It spins twice as fast as the Milky Way, but nothing much is going on inside. Scientists initially thought that zombie galaxies like this one formed by merging with smaller galaxies, but MACS 2129-1 didn't: it turns out that dead galaxies rearrange their internal structures as they age, rather than combining with other galaxies.
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The cannibal galaxy
The Andromeda galaxy, which is Earth's largest neighbor, is a cannibal galaxy, meaning that it devours smaller galaxies. In 4.5 billion years the Andromeda galaxy will collide with the Milky Way galaxy, although it's not clear which one will eat the other. Humans won't be around to see that event, anyway, because Earth will be uninhabitable for life then.
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The tadpole galaxy
This is the tadpole galaxy, swimming around 100 million light years away. It's "tail" is 500,000 light-years long and this strange shape was caused by the collision of three galaxies. In a few years, these galaxies will merge to become one.
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The greedy galaxy
The W2246-0526 galaxy is one greedy galaxy. In 2018, it sucked up half the mass of three neighboring galaxies. In the image, we can see streamers of mass connecting the galaxies as the central galaxy continues to suck matter from the other ones.
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The Little Cub galaxy
This is the Little Cub galaxy, a cute name for a dwarf galaxy that is doomed. Little Cub has been dormant since the Big Bang, which means it might contain molecules that haven't changes since the beginning of the universe. However, the galaxy is being eaten by it's neighbor NGC 3359 (the process of which will be educative for scientists to observe).
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The blooming galaxy
Galaxy ESO 381-12 appears to be blooming in space. The galaxy is 270 million light years away, and is crossed between a spiral galaxy and an elliptical galaxy. It has petal-like blooms that radiate outward from the center of the galaxy, and it's baffling scientists. It's possible that the petals are shock waves from a recent galactic collision.
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The photogenic galaxy
Messier 83 is a large spiral galaxy that is 15 million light years away from Earth. It seems to have a double nucleus at it's center (which could be two supermassive black holes that are holding the galaxy together) or it could be stars circling a single black hole. Messier 83 is hosts a lot of supernovas - astronomers have seen six occur, and there are remains of 300.
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The vermin galaxy
This photo shows a galaxy starting to pass behind a star (the galaxy is the small smudge in the bottom right corner and the star is the explosion-like shape). The galaxy is nicknamed the 'vermin galaxy' because its light gets in the way of studying the star and its system. In 2020, the star will fully obscure the galaxy.
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The eye galaxy
Are they the eyes of god? The disk of the spiral galaxy IC 2163 (on the right) became eye-like when it brushed against another galaxy, NGC 2207 (left). These "eyes" will only last for a few tens of millions of years - which is nothing in the life span of a galaxy.
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The galaxy with two hearts
Most normal galaxies are kept in place by a supermassive black hole at their center. This galaxy, NGC 7674, has two black holes. They are one light year apart, and there's only one other galaxy (a supermassive galaxy) known for having two black holes at it's heart.
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The dying galaxy
The the world of galaxies, it's eat others or die. And the galaxy NGC 1277 is dying. Technically, it's already a dead galaxy (it hasn't produced new stars in 10 billion years), and it's becoming stunted because it's moving too fast to eat other galaxies in its gravitational pull. Without the stars and dust from other galaxies, they can't stay alive.
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The galaxy that wants to visit us
Most galaxies are moving away from Earth, because the universe is still expanding. One galaxy is moving in the opposite direction: Messier 90. The spiral galaxy is around 60 million light years away from the Milky Way, and is getting closer (slowly).
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Our home galaxy
The Milky Way is our very own galaxy, and it's pretty strange. Turns out we live inside a cannibal galaxy: the Milky Way has sucked six galaxies into it's orbit. But that's OK, we forgive it. The Milky Way is home to between 100 billion and 400 billion stars, each with planets of their own.
Although it looks like a streak of milk splashed across the sky (hence it's name), we're actually viewing one arm of the spiral galaxy. If viewed from above (not right in the middle of it like we are) the Milky Way would be a spiral galaxy with four arms that's around 200,000 light years across. Although we think we're the center of the universe, there are about 100 billion galaxies in the universe. And there's a lot we don't know about.
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