 About 250 million light-years away, there's a neighborhood of our universe that astronomers had considered quiet and unremarkable. But now, scientists have uncovered an enormous, bizarre galaxy possibly formed from the parts of other galaxies. A new study to be published in the Astrophysical Journal reveals the secret of UGC-1382, a galaxy that had originally thought to be old, small, and typical. Instead, scientists using data from NASA telescopes and other observatories have discovered that the galaxy is ten times bigger than previously thought, and unlike most galaxies, its insides are younger than its outsides, almost as if it has been built using spare parts. This rare Frankenstein galaxy formed and is able to survive because it lies in a quiet little suburban neighborhood of the universe, where none of the hubbub, the more crowded parts can bother it, is that study co-author Mike Siebert of the Observatories of the Carnegie Institute for Science, Pasadena, California. It is so delicate that a slight nudge from a neighborhood would cause it to disintegrate. Siebert and Leah Hagen, a graduate student at Pennsylvania State University University Park, came upon this galaxy by accident. They had been looking for stars forming in run-of-the-mill elliptical galaxies, which do not spin in a more three-dimensional and football-shaped than flat disks. Astronomers originally thought that UGC-1382 was one of those. But while looking at images of galaxies and ultraviolet light through data from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer, a behemoth began to emerge from the darkness. We saw spiral arms extending far outside this galaxy, which no one had noticed before, and which elliptical galaxies should not have, said Hagen, who led the study. That puts us on an expedition to find out what this galaxy is and how it formed. Researchers then looked at data of the galaxy from other telescopes. After Galax revealed previously unseen structures to the astronomers, optical and infrared light observations from the other telescopes allowed the researchers to build a new model of this mysterious galaxy. As it turns out, UGC-1382, at about 718,000 light-years across, is more than 7 times wider than the Milky Way. It is also one of the three largest isolated disk galaxies ever discovered, according to the study. This galaxy is a rotating disk of low-density gas. Stars don't form here very quickly because the gas is so spread out. The biggest surprise was how the relative ages of the galaxy's components appear backwards. In most galaxies, the innermost portion forms first and contains the oldest stars. As the galaxy grows its outer, newer regions have the youngest stars, not so with UGC-1382. By combining observations from many different telescopes, astronomers were able to piece together the historical record of when stars formed in this galaxy. And the results were bizarre. The center of UGC-1382 is actually younger than the spiral disk surrounding it, Seabird said. It's old on the outside and young on the inside. This is like finding a tree whose inner growth rings are younger than the outer rings. The unique galactic structure may have resulted from separate entities coming together, rather than a single entity that grew outward. In other words, two parts of the galaxy seem to have evolved independently before merging, each with its own history. At first there was likely a group of small galaxies dominated by gas and dark matter, which is an invisible substance that makes up about 27% of all matter and energy in the universe. Our own matter is only 5%. Later, a lenticular galaxy, which is a rotating disk without spiral arms, would have formed nearby. At least 3 billion years old, the smaller galaxy may have fallen into orbit around the lenticular galaxy, eventually settling into the wide disk scene today. Every galaxy like this may exist, but more research is needed to look for them. We hope you enjoyed this information. My name is Seth, thank you guys so much for watching and remember, the ways by which we arrive at knowledge are hardly less wonderful than the discovery of these things themselves.