Scientists have been in use by surprise to find out that a galaxy they thought was tiny and conventional is, in fact, enormous and bizarre – and quite unlike no matter which they have seen before.
At about 718,000 light-years across, UGC 1382 is extra than seven times wider than the Milky Way – 10 times larger than was before thought. But that isn't the strange part.
Whereas the majority galaxies have the oldest stars closer to the centre, this one is the overturn.
“The centre of UGC 1382 is in fact younger than the spiral disc close it,” says Mark Seibert of the Observatories of the Carnegie organization for Science, in California.
“It’s old on the exterior and young on the inside. This is like verdict a tree whose inner growth rings are younger than the outer rings.”
Seibert and Lea Hagen of Pennsylvania State University found the galaxy by mishap while they were look for stars forming in run-of-the-mill elliptical galaxies – of which they consideration UGC 1382 was one.
But when they started looking additional closely at images in ultraviolet glow through data from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), they were astonished to see a vast span of stars that shouldn’t have been there.
“We saw spiral arms extend far outside this galaxy, which no one had notice before, and which elliptical galaxies should not have,” said Hagen, lead novelist of a learn to be published in the Astrophysical Journal.
“That put us on an expedition to discover out what this galaxy is and how it formed.”
Hagen and Seibert then look at data of the galaxy from a range of dissimilar telescopes – the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS), NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey traveler (WISE), the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very great Array and Carnegie's du Pont Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory.
Slowly a latest model of this mysterious galaxy emerged.
At 250 million light-years away, UGC 1382 turns out to be one of the 3 biggest isolated disc galaxies ever discovered – a rotating disc where stars are slow to form because of the low-density gas that it is made up of.
But the biggest surprise was how the relation ages of the galaxy's components come into view backwards.
The learn suggests that this may be because UGC 1382 has been cobbled jointly with two distinct parts of the galaxy developing independently before merging. That has resulted in a top structure, but not a very stable one.
“It is so delicate that a slight nudge from a neighbour would cause it to fall to pieces,” says Seibert.
He says it was only able to form & survive because it lies in a quiet part of the space, making it very rare. More galaxies like this may exist, but study is needed to look for them, the learn suggests.
“By understanding this galaxy, we can get clues to how galaxies form on a bigger scale, and uncover additional galactic neighbourhood surprises,” Hagen says.
At about 718,000 light-years across, UGC 1382 is extra than seven times wider than the Milky Way – 10 times larger than was before thought. But that isn't the strange part.
Whereas the majority galaxies have the oldest stars closer to the centre, this one is the overturn.
“The centre of UGC 1382 is in fact younger than the spiral disc close it,” says Mark Seibert of the Observatories of the Carnegie organization for Science, in California.
“It’s old on the exterior and young on the inside. This is like verdict a tree whose inner growth rings are younger than the outer rings.”
Seibert and Lea Hagen of Pennsylvania State University found the galaxy by mishap while they were look for stars forming in run-of-the-mill elliptical galaxies – of which they consideration UGC 1382 was one.
But when they started looking additional closely at images in ultraviolet glow through data from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), they were astonished to see a vast span of stars that shouldn’t have been there.
“We saw spiral arms extend far outside this galaxy, which no one had notice before, and which elliptical galaxies should not have,” said Hagen, lead novelist of a learn to be published in the Astrophysical Journal.
“That put us on an expedition to discover out what this galaxy is and how it formed.”
Hagen and Seibert then look at data of the galaxy from a range of dissimilar telescopes – the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS), NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey traveler (WISE), the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very great Array and Carnegie's du Pont Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory.
Slowly a latest model of this mysterious galaxy emerged.
At 250 million light-years away, UGC 1382 turns out to be one of the 3 biggest isolated disc galaxies ever discovered – a rotating disc where stars are slow to form because of the low-density gas that it is made up of.
But the biggest surprise was how the relation ages of the galaxy's components come into view backwards.
The learn suggests that this may be because UGC 1382 has been cobbled jointly with two distinct parts of the galaxy developing independently before merging. That has resulted in a top structure, but not a very stable one.
He says it was only able to form & survive because it lies in a quiet part of the space, making it very rare. More galaxies like this may exist, but study is needed to look for them, the learn suggests.
“By understanding this galaxy, we can get clues to how galaxies form on a bigger scale, and uncover additional galactic neighbourhood surprises,” Hagen says.
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