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Friday, May 11, 2012

Astronomers have open a galaxy of split personality

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.

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.

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.

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