The Hubble telescope has photographed a cosmic “target”: a galaxy surrounded by nine rings.They were formed after another, smaller galaxy passed through its center like a bullet.
Target-shaped galaxy
The discovery was made by accident while looking at images taken by ground-based observatories.
Lead researcher and Yale University doctoral student Imad Pash’s attention was drawn to the galaxy LEDA 1313424, which is surrounded by several distinct rings. Because of its distinctive appearance, astronomers have nicknamed it Bullseye, which is the name given to the center of a target in darts.

Cosmic Bullseye is located 567 million light-years away from the Milky Way toward the constellation Pisces. Its diameter is 250,000 light years. For comparison, the diameter of our galaxy is 100,000 light-years.
In total, astronomers were able to count nine rings surrounding LEDA 1313424. Eight were identified by the Hubble Space Telescope, and the ninth was discerned by telescopes at Keck Observatory. So far, it’s a record. Previously, astronomers have found galaxies surrounded by at most two or three rings.
Fateful collision
LEDA 1313424 gained its rings as a result of rather dramatic events that occurred about 50 million years ago. A blue dwarf galaxy has passed through its core. In the Hubble photo, it can be seen to the left of the center of LEDA 1313424. Although the distance between the two galaxies is now 130,000 light-years, they are still connected by a thin gas bridge.

Galaxies interact with each other quite often, but it is extremely rare that one galaxy passes through the center of another galaxy in a straight trajectory. The collision caused a wave motion of matter in LEDA 1313424, which can be compared to ripples in water. It led to the formation of new star-forming regions in the form of rings.
According to astronomers, we observe a relatively short (by astronomical standards) period of time when a galaxy can have so many rings. Presumably, the galaxy also had a tenth ring, located three times farther away than the widest ring in the Hubble image. But it has faded and is no longer observed.
The find is also interesting as it allowed us to confirm a long-held theory. All the evidence available to astronomers suggests that the galaxy’s rings moved outward almost exactly as existing models predict.