This beauty, dubbed NGC 6872, is a spiral galaxy found more than 200 million light-years from Earth in he constellation of Pavo. As you can see, the galaxy has undergone a bit of turbulence over the last several millions of years, turbulence caused by NGC 6872′s ongoging duel with another galaxy that wandered too close to it. The interactions resulted in the galaxy's peculiar shape.
The culprit, a smaller galaxy called 522,000 light-years across (making it the IC 4970, can be seen below and to the right of NGC 6872′s immense core. And when I say immense, I mean IMMENSE. NGC 6872 is purported to be about four or five times larger than our own galaxy, which extends more than 100,000 light-years across. The given estimate for the former puts it at largest spiral galaxy discovered to date)
See a larger image here.
Jaime is a freelance writer, who feels like she can't be summarized in a single paragraph. She will say, however, that she is very passionate about science (particularly physics and astronomy). She used this passion to launch 'From Quarks to Quasars' in 2012.
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