In Kyle Vernon’s Astronomy class last month, a student spotted an extremely rare phenomenon on the Galaxy Zoo Program. The Galaxy Zoo is a crowdsourced astronomy project which invites people to assist in the classification of large numbers of galaxies using pictures taken by astronomy robots. There are billions of galaxies in the universe, and this program is attempting to classify a few million.  

Shelbee Fraze, a senior at Frenship High School, was going through here assigned classification when she happened upon something extraordinary. Within the midst of billions of galaxies, a double ringed galaxy stands apart.  

“At first I thought WOW this is really pretty,” said Fraze. “Then I realized this was something different from all the other pictures I’ve seen.” 

Most galaxies have a spiral shape with arms curling around, such as the galaxy we call home, the Milkyway. This is an extremely unique sighting as a double ringed galaxy has never been studied before. 

The galaxy was spotted five days prior to Fraze’s discovery by a European Space Organization A.I. robot. They named the galaxy ESO 159-4 after the robot that first spotted it. Fraze was the fourth person in the world to look upon this double ringed galaxy.  

This galaxy will likely become a target for the NASA Hubble Space Telescope, which is one of the largest and most versatile, renowned both as a vital research tool in astronomy.  

Vernon has been using the Galaxy Zoo program for years as a way for his astronomy students to practice galaxy classifications and aid the astronomy community with their research. Vernon has never come across something as rare as this double ringed galaxy in the thousands of galaxies he has classified over the years.  

“In chemistry when you combine elements you know what you are going to get. In astronomy, we have no idea what we are going to see. That’s what's so special, the students get to practice real science,” Vernon said.