NGC 7049

NGC 7049 is a mysterious looking galaxy that blurs the boundary between spiral and elliptical galaxies.

NGC 7049 is the brightest of a cluster of galaxies, a so-called Brightest Cluster Galaxy. They represent some of the oldest and most massive galaxies, and they allow astronomers to study the elusive globular clusters lurking within.

Globular clusters are very dense and compact groupings of a few hundreds of thousands of young stars bound together by gravity. The globular clusters in NGC 7049 are seen as the sprinkling of small faint points of light in the galaxy’s halo. The halo – the ghostly region of diffuse light surrounding the galaxy – comprises myriad individual stars and provides a luminous background to the remarkable swirling ring of dust lanes surrounding NGC 7049’s core. The dust lanes appear as a lacy ring.