Hoag's Object

galaxies · space mysteries · astronomy

Perfect ring shape. Hoag's Object is a ring galaxy, meaning it has a brilliant circle of stars wrapped around an empty center that glows golden. It looks almost too perfect, like someone drew it with a cosmic compass.

Discovered in 1950. An astronomer named Arthur Hoag spotted this strange galaxy using a telescope and wasn't sure at first whether it was a nebula or an actual galaxy. It turned out to be one of the most unusual galaxies we know about.

Absolutely enormous. Hoag's Object stretches about 148,000 light-years across, which is bigger than our own Milky Way galaxy. That means light from one edge would take 148,000 years to reach the other edge.

Still a puzzle. Scientists still aren't completely sure how Hoag's Object formed its perfect ring shape. It might have happened when two galaxies collided billions of years ago, or it could have formed in some other way we haven't figured out yet.