Hoag's Object

ring galaxy · a perfect ring around a yellow core

612 million light-years from Earth

A nearly perfect ring of young blue stars around a ball of old yellow ones, with an empty gap between them. Nobody is sure how it formed. Through the gap you can see another, far more distant ring galaxy.

• 612 million light-years · the ring is about 120,000 light-years across
• its core is only 17,000 light-years wide

kind

galaxy