M94: a galaxy that's difficult to explain

In the area of the M51 group of galaxies, but considerably closer to us, at 16 million light-years, lies this little treasure. M94 is definitely one of the most spectacular galaxies in the Messier catalogue, as we see it face-on and also given it's fairly high surface brightness. In larger telescopes it becomes obvious that this isn't just a normal spiral galaxy but that it consists of a bright inner ring (with complex spiral structure), some 50,000 light-years across, and a faint outer halo that extends at least 30,000 light-years beyond that. 

For the time being, scientists are having difficulties finding a plausible explanation for this odd, double-ring shape because both the accretion of a smaller galaxy or interaction with a neighbour don't seem to add up in this case.  What's more, there appears to be very little dark matter present in it. This is very controversial because current models fail to explain how a galaxy could form without a sufficient amount of dark matter.

There's more. At first it was believed that the bright, swirling inner structure was by far the most active region in this galaxy and we do observe some serious star-forming there indeed. Recent IR and UV studies, however, revealed that the outer halo is not an ordinary ring of stars, but a complex structure of spiral arms which is surprisingly active. In fact, there's twice as much star formation going on in this outlying region and also this raises some eyebrows. A possible explanation could be that star formation in the outer halo is simply more efficient.