Just when the Universe has been created, 10.8 billion years ago, astronomers were able to find an interesting thing from that time: a Galaxy that was wearing the battle scars of a cosmic brawl. We are not talking about discs of stars, just like the other galaxies have, but this is quite the giant donut – it has a hole right through its center.
This actually classifies it as being a rare type of Galaxy, known as a Ring Galaxy. Its shape does not come from internal processes, but from a collision, which made its core strip away when the other Galaxy passed through.
This Galaxy is called R5519, and it is actually the first collisional ring galaxy which astronomers ever found. This is also the only such object found in the early Universe: “It is a very curious object that we’ve never seen before,” said astronomer Tiantian Yuan of the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) in Australia. It looks strange and familiar at the same time.”
Up until now, we only found galaxies that had a peaceful formation, which was produced by orbital resonance or the acceleration of material from another Galaxy that was found nearby. But these were not found in R5519. The acceleration process should not disrupt core, as we’ve all seen it happened in galaxies such as Hoag’s Object and NGC 7742.
Also, R5519 shows a high rate of star formation in its ring. There are so many stars born every year. This might also suggest gravitational disruption.
