Extragalactic pugilist M64, the Blackeye Galaxy in Coma Berenices, sports a massive shiner of dust that lies asymmetrically across the galaxy’s prominent bulge. Apparently, M64 met another galaxy over a billion years ago and did not so much battle it as assimilate it. Nevertheless, that feisty dwarf system caused significant turbulence in M64: The stars and gas in M64’s inner disk rotate in the opposite direction as its outer regions.
Compression during the merger likely ignited bo