ONE OF MY FAVORITE GALAXIES
located ~500 million ly away in the sculptor constellation, and discovered by fritz zwicky in 1941, its shape is because of a collision with another galaxy. it's slightly larger than our milky way, being 150,000 ly across (give or take), but it's also significantly less massive than our galaxy (the milky way has 1.5 trillion solar masses, the cartwheel galaxy only has about 3.5b).
this absolute beast's outer ring is still expanding which compresses gas and dust which trigger new star formation. sadly, it'll be turning into a spiral galaxy over the next few hundred million years. but im glad i wont live to see it
TELL ME YOUR FAVORITE GALAXIES!!! (or is that just my neurodivergent ahh?? ðŸ˜ðŸ˜)
https://www.reddit.com/gallery/1jqtek3