Researchers get first look at new, extremely rare galaxy

Approximately 359 million light-years away from Earth, there is a galaxy with an innocuous name (PGC 1000714) that doesn’t look quite like anything astronomers have observed before. New research provides a first description of a well-defined elliptical-like core surrounded by two circular ringsā€”a galaxy that appears to belong to a class of rarely observed, Hoag-type galaxies. This work was done by scientists at the University of Minnesota Duluth and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.