NGC 4013, located in the constellation Ursa Minor nearly 50 million light-years away was considered to be an isolated island universe. This galaxy is known for its flattened disk and central bulge of stars. However this weeks image of the galaxy shows a faint looping structure never seen before. It seems to extend about 80 thousand light-years from the center of the galaxy, and is discovered to be a bunch of stars that originally were apart of another galaxy. This phenomenon was liekly due to a smaller galaxy being torn apart by gravitational tides and then merging with a larger galaxy. Some astronomers argue that this recently discovered tidal stream offers parallels to how our own Milky Way Galaxy formed.
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