Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cancer (Cnc)
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Fishhook Galaxy, Gary Imm
Fishhook Galaxy, Gary Imm

Fishhook Galaxy

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Fishhook Galaxy, Gary Imm
Fishhook Galaxy, Gary Imm

Fishhook Galaxy

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Description

This Astrobin Debut Object is a tiny, unusually distorted starburst galaxy located 650 million light years away in the constellation of Cancer at a declination of +28 degrees.  It spans 30 arc-seconds in our apparent view.  This corresponds to a Milky Way size diameter of 120,000 light years.  The bottom tip of the galaxy is obstructed slightly by a foreground Milky Way star.

Its formal names are AGC 181313 and SDSS J082355.03+280630.5.  It looks more like a saxophone than a fishhook to me.

So many mysteries abound in the universe.  The galaxy structure here is one of them.  I don’t understand how it formed.  It looks a bit like a pair of galaxies merging, with long tails, but those tails contain far more dust than would be expected if that were the case.

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