Hoag’s Object

There is no way that something with a name like Hoag's Object isn't a little strange. When you learn more about what exactly Arthur Hoag discovered back in 1950, it lives up to its potential. Hoag was an astronomer carrying out what astronomers do, which is to observe the cosmos. He was unsure of what he was witnessing until he came across something in the depths of space. It appeared at first that he had discovered a brand-new galaxy, which isn't particularly rare in and of itself. However, this galaxy appeared to be located inside of another galaxy, which was absolutely strange.

The object appears to be a gigantic blazing core encircled by a flawless ring of stars, thousands of points of light, much like our own Milky Way, only shaped into a circle in photographs of it. It is a breathtaking 100,000 light years across and 600 million light years away. Other ring galaxies have been discovered after its discovery, but this one is still mysterious. There is no proof that this ring galaxy formed through the galactic collision of two other galaxies, which is how most ring galaxies do.