New galaxy closest ever to earth

The discovery of a new ring galaxy which arose from a galaxy collision, the closest ever to the earth, was made public by the University of Hong Kong (HKU) on Monday.

The newly formed ring galaxy was found by a team of astronomers led by Professor Quentin Parker at the HKU and Professor Albert Zijlstra at the University of Manchester, during a survey of the southern Milky Way, reported Xinhua.

The ring is 30 million light years away. The results were published in the monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Shock-waves from the collision compress reservoirs of gas in each galaxy and trigger the formation of new stars. This creates a spectacular ring of intense emission.

Galaxies grow through collisions but it is rare to catch one in the process, and extremely rare to see a bull's-eye collision in progress.