Explanation:
How was this unusual looking galaxy created?
No one is sure, especially since spiral galaxy NGC 7049 looks so strange.
NGC 7049's striking appearance is primarily due to an unusually prominent
dust ring seen mostly in
silhouette.
The opaque ring is much
darker than the din of millions of bright stars glowing behind it.
Besides the dark dust, NGC 7049 appears similar to a smooth
elliptical galaxy,
although featuring surprisingly few
globular
star clusters.
NGC 7049 is pictured above as imaged recently by the
Hubble Space Telescope.
The bright star near the top of
NGC 7049 is an unrelated foreground star in our own Galaxy.
Not visible here is an unusual central
polar ring
of gas circling out of the plane near the galaxy's center.
Since NGC 7049 is the brightest galaxy in its
cluster of galaxies,
its formation might be fostered by several prominent and recent
galaxy collisions.
NGC 7049 spans about 150 thousand light years and lies about 100 million
light years away toward the
constellation
of Indus.
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