Sep 21, 2024
NGC 474
This galaxy is particularly curious, it appears to have shells of stars and weird outflows, called star streams.
It's likely an elliptical galaxy that's had some recent interaction or collision, that's resulted in the smash up of a smaller galaxy, and the stars will stream in and out of the galaxy eventually finding a stable orbit, but that could take billions of years.
The shells are more peculiar and could be a result of the collision, or some kind of resonance waves that's pulling and pushing stars into these shell like arrangements around the galaxy.
The galaxy is 100 million light years from Earth in the constellation of Pisces.