This amazing object is not quite like a familiar galaxy. It lacks clear spiral twists or a reddish elliptical bulge. In fact, before you lenticular galaxy. This is an intermediate stage between the spiral and elliptical type. It has a disk shape, but does not form a huge number of stars, and therefore has ancient populations.
The core of NGC 2655 seems incredibly bright, which is why we get another classification - the Seyfert galaxy. That is, the active type with powerful and characteristic emission lines. It is believed that brightness appears when matter is thrown onto an accretion disk by a supermassive black hole. At the same time, the structure of the external disk NGC 2655 looks calmer, which seems strange. The fact is that the complex dynamics of galactic gas indicates a turbulent past (merging with other galaxies). NGC 2655 is 80 million light-years distant from us and lives on the territory of the Giraffe. There is also an open cluster of NGC 1502, the asterism Cascade Kemble, and the stellar galaxy NGC 2146.
