Astronomers working with the
telescope Spitzer released new images of NGC 4594, known as the Sombrero . As a result, the researchers found out that
it "suffers from split personality" - inside the giant elliptical
galaxy essentially is a small spiral. Article
scientists appear in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical
Society, and its summary is provided on the site of NASA.
Hubble's classification system,
all the galaxies are divided into four main classes - elliptical, spiral. The first differ elliptical shape and lack of
internal structure, the latter have a central bulge of almost spherical shape
(bulge) with sleeves - this type is the Milky Way. The third class of galaxies is a transitional
type between the first two (in fact bulge without sleeves), and the last placed
the galaxy, not included in the first three.
Sombrero
galaxy is located at a distance of 28 million light-years from Earth in the
constellation Virgo. It received its
name because in the optical band appears as a glowing cloud of elliptical shape
with the edge of the dark matter.
Due to the fact that NGC 4594 is
turned to the observer on the Earth side, astronomers find it difficult to
unambiguously determine the shape of this cluster, although until recently it
was thought that it spiral. In the new
work, scientists analyzed data collected by Spitzer telescope in the
infrared. Apparatus able to detect that
the location of old stars in the halo of the galaxy is consistent with the
predictions of models of elliptical galaxies.
According to scientists, the
structure of the galaxy looks like an elliptical galaxy is embedded into a
spiral. Clarity of structure suggests
that it is not the result of interaction with another galaxy. Scientists find it difficult to explain how
such a structure is formed at all - they say only that, probably about 9
billion years ago, congestion was feeding gas from intergalactic space.
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