The R5519 is located 10.8 billion light-years from Earth and has a shape that looks like a ring of fire and probably many people will associate it with Sauron, the great villain of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The study by Hubble and Keck involved more than 4 thousand galaxies and only this one presented this differentiated format called ring. In addition, other features intrigued scientists like the lack of a massive nucleus and the gigantic dimensions of the ring, which has a diameter of 42,400 light years and its hole measures 17,612 light years. How did it graduate? Another interesting feature is its formation, which was due to the collision of two galaxies: R5519 and G5593, different from others that are born by orbital resonance or by the gravitational attraction of materials from other star systems. Scientists explain the format by saying that when the two collided, the R5519 broke and a wave of stars crashed, resulting in the ring shape, according to an article published in the journal Nature Astronomy. Only one in every thousand galaxies has this type of formation. And if you think you stopped here, know that there is much more. The R5519 is still a great progenitor of stars: every year about 80 suns are born in its ring. Another point that intrigues scientists is its age: the R5519 is already 10.8 billion years old, if we consider that the Universe is 13.8 billion years old, this means that it was formed when the Universe was just over 3 billions of years. The fact is that it goes against a theory by scientists that says such galaxies had formed only between 4 and 6 billion years after the Big Bang. Kenneth Freeman, author of the article, concludes by stating the following: In the case of this ring galaxy, we have been looking at the beginning of the universe 11 billion years ago, a time when these disks (from galaxies) were just forming. For comparison, our Milky Way’s galactic disk began to unite only about 9 billion years ago. This discovery is an indication that the mounting of the disk in spiral galaxies occurred over a longer period than previously thought. Ultimately, such a discovery can help us to understand more about the Milky Way where we live and much more about the formation of these incredible systems.
