{"id":222373,"date":"2025-09-24T03:40:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T08:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/not-spiral-not-elliptical-so-what-exactly-is-this-galaxy"},"modified":"2025-09-24T03:40:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T08:40:09","slug":"not-spiral-not-elliptical-so-what-exactly-is-this-galaxy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/not-spiral-not-elliptical-so-what-exactly-is-this-galaxy","title":{"rendered":"Not Spiral. Not Elliptical. So What Exactly Is This Galaxy?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/not-spiral-not-elliptical-so-what-exactly-is-this-galaxy.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Hubble Space Telescope has released a new Picture of the Week, and this time the spotlight is on a <a href=\"https:\/\/scitechdaily.com\/astronomy-astrophysics-101-galaxy\/\">galaxy<\/a> that refuses to fit neatly into any category. The subject, known as NGC 2,775, is located about 67 million light-years away in the constellation Cancer (The Crab). At its center lies a smooth, gas-free core that looks strikingly similar to an <a href=\"https:\/\/scitechdaily.com\/astronomy-astrophysics-101-elliptical-galaxy\/\">elliptical galaxy<\/a>. Surrounding it, however, is a dusty ring sprinkled with uneven clusters of young stars, giving it the appearance of a <a href=\"https:\/\/scitechdaily.com\/astronomy-astrophysics-101-spiral-galaxies\/\">spiral galaxy<\/a>. So what is it exactly: spiral, elliptical \u2014 or something in between?<\/p>\n<p>Because astronomers can only observe NGC 2,775 from a single perspective, its true nature remains uncertain. Some scientists argue that it should be considered a spiral galaxy due to its delicate ring of dust and <a href=\"https:\/\/scitechdaily.com\/astronomy-astrophysics-101-star\/\">stars<\/a>. Others, however, classify it as a lenticular galaxy, a transitional type that shares characteristics of both spirals and ellipticals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Hubble Space Telescope has released a new Picture of the Week, and this time the spotlight is on a galaxy that refuses to fit neatly into any category. The subject, known as NGC 2,775, is located about 67 million light-years away in the constellation Cancer (The Crab). At its center lies a smooth, gas-free [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-222373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}