Verified fact: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope imaged the spiral galaxy NGC 4698; the image and accompanying description were published by NASA on Sep 18, 2026.

Evidence: NGC 4698 lies about 55 million light-years away in the Virgo Cluster, according to NASA. The galaxy shows spiral arms concentrated in the outer disk while the central bulge extends above and below the disk plane; Hubble data indicate the stars and gas near the center rotate perpendicular to the rest of the disk. NASA’s release also notes a supermassive black hole in the bulge that contains "millions of times the Sun’s mass" and signs that it is actively accreting gas.

Source claim and interpretation: NASA reports that astronomers consider external gas inflow the most likely cause; newly accreted gas can settle into a central, misaligned disk and form stars at a different angle than the outer disk. The release adds that some observations are consistent with a past minor merger, including a short hydrogen "tail" extending from the galaxy.

Practical consequence: Researchers will use this and other Hubble observations of Virgo Cluster galaxies to study how a galaxy’s passage through a cluster affects its structure and star-forming ability; understanding misaligned central disks helps explain how external interactions drive galaxy evolution.

Limits and uncertainty: The external-accretion and minor-merger explanation is NASA’s assessment based on current observations; the release does not claim definitive proof and notes alternative histories are not ruled out. Further data and analysis will be needed to confirm the sequence of events that produced NGC 4698’s unusual geometry.

Sources & methodology

This report was written from the primary materials below. Links open at the original publisher.

NASA

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