Hoag's Object
The better part of a billion light-years away, Hoag's Object hangs in the sky like a giant, luminous eye.
September 16, 2015
Hoag's Object is a galaxy close to the size of the milky way, comprising a ring of young blue stars around a luminous yellow core. Although it was initially assumed to be an illusion caused by gravitational lensing, closer examination revealed the near-perfect circle of Hoag's Object to be a real structure. How this structure formed, though, is still an open question.
