Sometime in the early stages of the universe, two galaxies violently collided to create a massive and rare ring galaxy.

Lurking some 11 billion light years from Earth, the gargantuan galaxy produced so many stars, scientists have nicknamed it the "cosmic ring of fire.".

Scientists were aware of the existence of "collisional ring galaxies," but R5519 is the first one ever located in the early universe.

"Previously, people think we would find more of these collisional ring galaxies in the young universe, simply because there are more collisions back then," Yuan told CNET

Researchers said collisional ring galaxies are 1,000 times rarer than traditional ring galaxies, which form because of internal processes

Images of R5519, stemming from about 10.8 billion years ago, suggest these types of galaxies have been uncommon since the Big Bang, just three billion years prior. 

The Milky Way's thin disk only started to form about 9 billion years ago — R5519 shows that disks in spiral galaxies formed over a long span of time