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Astronomy basics > Fast Facts: Cartwheel Galaxy
| Name | Cartwheel Galaxy |
| Description | Interacting galaxy |
| Age | The ring resulted from a collision between two galaxies that would have been observed for the first time on Earth 200 million years ago. What we see today took 200 million years to develop, based on rate analysis of expanding gases. |
| Location | Found in the constellation Sculptor in the Southern Hemisphere below Pisces and Cetus |
| Distance from Earth |
500 million light-years |
| Size | 150,000 light-years across (somewhat larger than the Milky Way galaxy) |
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A blue ring of star formation resulted from a head-on
collision between the Cartwheel and a smaller galaxy.
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Astronomy basics > Fast Facts: Cartwheel Galaxy