Rare doughnut-shaped ‘cosmic ring of fire’ galaxy discovered in the early universe

Astronomers have spotted a ‘cosmic ring of fire’ making stars 50 times faster than the Milky Way even though its mass is roughly the same size.

The galaxy has been named R5519 and its discovery was announced in the Nature Astronomy journal. Since it is situated so far away, light from R5519 took long time to reach earth, so the images of the galaxy that were recently captured are about 11 billion years old.

Among almost 4,000 galaxies detected in the data sets, R5519 was one of the brightest and displayed a clear ring structure.

Lead researcher Dr Tiantian Yuan, from Australia’s ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) said, “It is a very curious object that we’ve never seen before. It looks strange and familiar at the same time.”

The ring-shaped galaxy has a hole in the middle and is roughly as heavy as our Milky Way.The latest discovery could change the way scientists and researchers understand the formation and evolution of galaxies.