Cartwheel Galaxy
The Cartwheel Galaxy is one of the most beautiful in space. The lighting all over makes it just stand out as gorgeous to all who see it. This is both a lenticular and ring galaxy. Lenticular galaxies are those that seem to fall right in-between a spiral and elliptical galaxy. As you can see, the galaxy is not technically either but it has the makings of each. Of course, it is also a ring galaxy for the obvious reason you can see for yourself. The Cartwheel Galaxy is absolutely massive too. Scientists have estimated it is roughly 150,000 lightyears in diameter alone. It’s also an estimated 1 billion solar masses, give or take 2.9 to 4.8 solar masses.
The velocity of the outer ring is an estimated 217 kilometers per second or km/s. That equals 485,415 miles per hour, which is faster than the highest speed any machine built by humans has ever gone with humans inside. However, NASA’s unmanned Parker Space Probe did manage to reach 400,000 mph when it was observing the outer corona of our Sun. This specific Cartwheel Galaxy is part of the Cartwheel Galaxy Group, which consists of four physically associated spiral galaxies of which this galaxy is the largest. It houses several compelling stars and was even found to have a type II supernova in late 2021.