Sep 24, 2024
The beautiful and mysterious galaxy known as Hoag's Object has a nucleus of older yellow stars surrounded by a ring of young blue stars separated by a gap spanning thousands of light-years.
📸: NASA / ESA / STScI
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Hoag's Object is an unusual ring galaxy in the constellation of Serpens Caput.
It is named after Arthur Hoag (1921-1999), who discovered it in 1950. He identified it as either a planetary nebula or a peculiar galaxy.
The galaxy has a D25 isophotal diameter of 45.41 kiloparsecs (148,000 light-years).