NGC 247 - Burbidge's Chain

The spiral galaxy NGC 247 is one of the closest spiral galaxies of the southern sky at approximately 11.5 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Cetus.

The dust forms dark patches and filaments that are silhouetted against the background of stars, while the gas has formed into bright knots known as H II regions, mostly scattered throughout the galaxy’s arms and outer areas.

NGC 247 displays one unusual feature that is observed immediately. The northern part of the galaxy’s disc hosts an apparent void, a gap in the usual swarm of stars and H II regions that spans almost a third of the galaxy’s total length.

There are stars within this void, but they are quite different from those around it. They are significantly older, and as a result much fainter and redder. This indicates that the star formation taking place across most of the disc of NGC 247 has somehow been stopped in the void region, and has not taken place for around one billion years.

Although astronomers are still unsure how the void formed, recent studies suggest it might have been caused by gravitational interactions with part of another galaxy.

In the upper right area of the galaxy the background reveals five small galaxies stringed in a chain like structure called “Burbidge's Chain”. This galaxies are way more distant at about 300 million light-years away from us.