By analyzing the photographs of the Sombrero Galaxy obtained with the Hubble Area Telescope (HST), Elio Quiroga Rodriguez of the Mid Atlantic College in Spain, has recognized a peculiar object, which turned out to be a galaxy internet hosting an energetic galactic nucleus (AGN). The discovering was reported in a paper revealed August 11 on the pre-print server arXiv.
An AGN is a compact area on the heart of a galaxy, extra luminous than the encircling galaxy gentle. Research present that AGNs are very energetic due both to the presence of a black hole or star formation exercise on the core of the galaxy.
Astronomers usually divide AGNs into two teams primarily based on emission line options. Kind 1 AGNs present broad and slender emission strains, whereas solely slender emission strains are current in Kind 2 AGNs. Nevertheless, observations revealed that some AGNs transition between totally different spectral varieties; subsequently, they have been dubbed changing-look (CL) AGNs.
Sombrero Galaxy (often known as Messier 104 or NGC 4594) is an unbarred spiral galaxy positioned between the borders of the Virgo and Corvus constellations, some 31 million gentle years away. With a mass of about 800 billion solar masses, it is among the most large objects within the Virgo galaxy cluster. It additionally hosts a wealthy system of globular clusters.
Rodriguez has just lately investigated HST photographs of the Sombrero Galaxy, focusing one explicit object in its halo. He discovered that this object, beforehand categorised as a globular cluster candidate, could also be a barred spiral galaxy of the SBc kind, with an AGN at its heart.
“Whereas finding out HST photographs obtainable on the HST Legacy web site of the halo of M104 (HST proposal 9714, PI: Keith Noll), the creator noticed at 12:40:07.829-11:36:47.38 (in j2000) an object about 4 arcseconds in diameter. A examine with VO instruments means that the article is a SBc galaxy with AGN (Seyfert),” the paper reads.
The item is cataloged within the Pan-STARRS1 knowledge archive as PSO J190.0326-11.6132. By analyzing the info from the Aladin Sky Atlas RGB Rodriguez discovered that PSO J190.0326-11.6132 is a galaxy with a dominant central arm, nucleus and presumably two spiral arms with scorching younger stars and dust. The astronomer proposes that the newfound galaxy needs to be named the “Iris Galaxy.”
The examine discovered that PSO J190.0326-11.6132 has a radial velocity at a stage of 1,359 km/s. Rodriguez assumes that the article, if gravitationally certain to the Sombrero Galaxy, could possibly be its satellite with an angular measurement of round 1,000 gentle years.
Nevertheless, the creator of the paper famous that if the Iris Galaxy is just not related to the Sombrero Galaxy, its distance could also be some 65 million gentle years. On this situation, the angular measurement of the newly detected needs to be about 71,000 gentle years.
The X-ray emission luminosity of the Iris Galaxy was measured to be roughly 18 tredecillion erg/s, assuming a distance of 65 million gentle years. Such luminosity signifies the presence of an active galactic nucleus, nevertheless additional observations are required so as to decide whether or not this can be a Kind 1 or Kind 2 AGN.
Extra info:
E. Quiroga, A peculiar galaxy close to M104, arXiv (2023). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2308.06187
Journal info:
arXiv
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Spanish astronomer discovers new energetic galaxy (2023, August 21)
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