Astronomy

Galaxies with ‘hoop skirts’ are more common than we thought

Astronomers have discovered thousands more galaxies with stars ringing their main disks

A telescope image shows a bright, elongated galaxy with a glowing central core encircled by a warped ring of stars and gas set against a field of stars and galaxies.

The galaxy NGC 660 (shown) is an example of a polar ring galaxy, in which the main galaxy sports a belt of stars or gas roughly perpendicular to its disk.

International Gemini Observatory/AURA

By Lisa Grossman

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