The cosmic smoke ring is a bizarre galaxy called Hoag’s Object, first seen in 1950. Like a giant wheel without spokes, it consists of a bright ring of hot blue stars surrounding a nucleus of yellow stars.
According to George Pronko of the Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino in Russia, Hoag’s Object is similar to a three-dimensional soliton that usually forms in a gas, but consists instead of stars moving under the influence of gravity.
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