What is the Cartwheel Galaxy?

The Cartwheel Galaxy is 500 million light years away and glows at 15th magnitude. Located in the southern constellation Sculptor, this collisional ring galaxy was likely formed from a collision between two galaxies in the distant past. The blue ring of material is a region of active star formation dominated by hot blue stars. This ring of material is 150,000 light years in diameter which is larger than our own milky way galaxy.  The unusual shape of the Cartwheel Galaxy may be due to a collision with a smaller galaxy. The most recent star burst has lit up the Cartwheel rim, which has a diameter larger than the Milky Way. Star formation via starburst galaxies, such as the Cartwheel Galaxy, results in the formation of large and extremely luminous stars. When massive stars explode as supernovas, they leave behind neutron stars and black holes. Some of these neutron stars and black holes have nearby companion stars and become powerful sources of X-rays as they pull matter off their companions. The brightest X-ray sources are likely black holes with companion stars and appear as the white dots that lie along the rim of the X-ray image. The Cartwheel contains an exceptionally large number of these black hole binary X-ray sources because many massive stars formed in the ring.

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