Hubble Heritage
Polar-Ring Galaxy NGC 4650A
Located about 130 million light-years away, NGC 4650A is one of only 100 known polar-ring galaxies. Their unusual disk-ring structure is not yet understood fully. One possibility is that polar rings are the remnants of colossal collisions between two galaxies sometime in the distant past, probably at least 1 billion years ago. During the collision the gas from a smaller galaxy would have been stripped off and captured by a larger galaxy, forming a new ring of dust, gas, and stars, which orbit around the inner galaxy almost at right angles to the larger galaxy's disk. This is the vertical polar ring which we see almost edge-on in Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 image of NGC 4560A, created using 3 different color filters (which transmit blue, green, and near-infrared light).
Polar-Ring Galaxy NGC 4650A
Located about 130 million light-years away, NGC 4650A is one of only 100 known polar-ring galaxies. Their unusual disk-ring structure is not yet understood fully. One possibility is that polar rings are the remnants of colossal collisions between two galaxies sometime in the distant past, probably at least 1 billion years ago. During the collision the gas from a smaller galaxy would have been stripped off and captured by a larger galaxy, forming a new ring of dust, gas, and stars, which orbit around the inner galaxy almost at right angles to the larger galaxy's disk. This is the vertical polar ring which we see almost edge-on in Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 image of NGC 4560A, created using 3 different color filters (which transmit blue, green, and near-infrared light).