Dramatically Backlit Dust Lanes in NGC 7049

NGC 7049 is a lenticular galaxy (on the border between spiral and elliptical galaxies) found in the faint southern-hemisphere constellation Indus, the Indian. The galaxy is about 150,000 light-years in diameter and lies some 100 million light-years away. NGC 7049's dramatic appearance is largely due to a dark, lacy dust ring which stands out prominently against the collective glow of millions of stars behind it. These dust lanes are usually seen in young galaxies with active star-forming regions, so they appear very out of place in this morphologically unusual and complex galaxy.