NGC 1055

Viewed edge-on, NGC 1055, is a spiral galaxy approximately 55 million light years away in the Cetus constellation. On the upper right side of the galaxy, you can see that one of the spiral arms has been distorted—probably from an interaction with a nearby galaxy. One large galaxy near it is Messier 77 (not pictured), which is only 500,000 light years from NGC 1055. That’s only a quarter of the distance from the Milky Way to Andromeda.

An interesting feature of NGC 1055 is the X, or peanut, shape of its central bulge, which is clearly visible in this image. This is indicative of barred spiral galaxies. In fact, our own Milky Way, also thought to be a barred spiral, has such a shape to its central bulge.

Note that the two bright stars above NGC 1055 are foreground stars from our own galaxy.