Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. IC3328 is an otherwise unremarkable dwarf elliptical galaxy about 50 million light-years away in the Virgo cluster . A team of astronomers recently made this totally surprising discovery using detailed digital images from the European Southern Observatory's 8.2 meter Antu telescope. Typical of large, rotating, disk galaxies with density waves, spiral structure is unprecedented in the blob-shaped aggregates of stars normally classified as elliptical galaxies . Some possibilities under consideration include tidal interactions with nearby galaxies and amplified internal stellar motions.
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