The Hubble telescope's snapshot of a disc-shaped galaxy offers a spectacular view of a celestial grouping some 60 million light-years away.
The galaxy, officially known as IC 335, has been difficult for NASA researchers to classify because the galaxy is seen from its edge. NASA said most galaxies have arms like a spiral or a bar across the center.
"These lenticular galaxies are an intermediate state in galaxy morphological classification schemes between true spiral and elliptical galaxies," according to NASA. "They have a thin stellar disk and a bulge, like spiral galaxies, but in contrast to typical spiral galaxies they have used up most of the interstellar medium."
"Only a few new stars can be created out of the material that is left and the star formation rate is very low. Hence, the population of stars in S0 galaxies consists mainly of aging stars, very similar to the star population in elliptical galaxies," said NASA.
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Tech Times wrote that S0 galaxies are at times mistaken for elliptical galaxies due to the ill-defined spiral arms. S0 galaxies and elliptical galaxies have some of the same characteristics such as spectral features and typical sizes.
NASA said that both galaxy classes are described as "early-type" galaxies because they are evolving passively. The space agency noted that elliptical galaxies have usually had violent interactions with other galaxies in their past even though they are currently evolving passively.
The photo of IC 335 excited numerous people on social media this week.
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