The discovery of cigars or sponges is relatively rare, as only 12 of them had been discovered until a few days ago. But now their number has jumped to 20, as a team of astronomers led by a Greek woman discovered eight more.

The researchers, led by Dr Athanassia Tatsi, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, published the paper in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, the Astronomy and Astrophysics Journal.

The discovery of eight more “cigars” that rotate like shells around their longitudinal axis shows that this type of galaxy is less rare than astronomers have thought so far. However, most galaxies in the universe are elliptical or spiral.

The new findings have allowed scientists to create a new model for how these unusual galaxies were likely created, rather than a special type of merging of two spiral galaxies that existed before.