NGC 541 is a lenticular galaxy about 230 million light years away, with wide error bars. To its northeast, bottom left in this picture, is Minkowski's Object.
The blue-ish Object is a region of recent star formation, ~7.5 million years old. One theory is that it's an irregular galaxy but the more-commonly held one is that it's a former cloud of gas that strayed into an invisible-to-the eye jet from NGC 541. The second and third pictures show the smoking gun in radio frequencies. 1/2
Source 1: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/ngc-541-fuels-an-irregular-galaxy-in-new-hubble-image
Source 2: Jet-induced star formation in 3C 285 and Minkowski [sic] Object; https://arxiv.org/pdf/1410.8367
Source 3: Minkowski’s Object: A Starburst Triggered by a Radio Jet, Revisited; https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0604557
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This striking pair is an elliptical galaxy NGC 541 and an unusual star-forming, irregular dwarf galaxy known as Minkowski’s Object (the bluish object to the lower left of NGC 541). Elliptical galaxies are nearly spherical to egg-shaped groups of stars that form when galaxies merge. NGC 541 shoots out radio jets that are invisible to […]
The View from Out There