Galaxy Zoo Talk

Unusual ring galaxy in merger with an elliptical?

  • Abaedan by Abaedan

    Hi all,

    This object came up to classify and wanted to share, but I'm interested in the galaxy below it. I found it in SDSS viewer here:

    http://skyserver.sdss.org/dr9/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=1237662637443842089

    I'm still new to this and am trying to figure out what I'm looking at, I can tell from the spectrum that it must be mainly older red stars, but how can the unusual lopsided ring with a tidal 'tail' have resulted? I wanted to post about it because I've not seen anything like it before in any other images.

    Posted