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Messier 59
Messier 59 or M59, also known as NGC 4621, is an elliptical galaxy in the equatorial constellation of Virgo. It is a member of the Virgo Cluster, with the nearest fellow member away and around 5 magnitudes fainter. The nearest cluster member of comparable brightness is the lenticular galaxy NGC 4638, which is around away. It and the angularly nearby elliptical galaxy Messier 60 were both discovered by Johann Gottfried Koehler in April 1779 when observing comet seeming close by. Charles Messier listed both in the Messier Catalogue about three days after Koehler's discovery. This is an elliptical galaxy of type E5 with a position angle of 163.3°, indicating the overall shape shows a flattening of 50%. However, isophotes for this galaxy deviate from a perfect ellipticity, showing pointed shapes instead. These can be decomposed mathematically into a three component model, with each part having a different eccentricity. The main elliptical component appears to be superimposed upon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Messier Object
The Messier objects are a set of 110 astronomical objects catalogued by the French astronomer Charles Messier in his ''Catalogue des Nébuleuses et des Amas d'Étoiles'' (''Catalogue of Nebulae and Star Clusters''). Because Messier was only interested in finding comets, he created a list of those non-comet objects that frustrated his hunt for them. The compilation of this list, in collaboration with his assistant Pierre Méchain, is known as ''the Messier catalogue''. This catalogue of objects is one of the most famous lists of astronomical objects, and many Messier objects are still referenced by their Messier numbers. The catalogue includes most of the astronomical deep-sky objects that can easily be observed from Earth's Northern Hemisphere; many Messier objects are popular targets for amateur astronomers. A preliminary version first appeared in 1774 in the ''Memoirs'' of the French Academy of Sciences for the year 1771. The first version of Messier's catalogue contain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Messier
Charles Messier (; 26 June 1730 – 12 April 1817) was a French astronomer. He published an astronomical catalogue consisting of 110 nebulae and star clusters, which came to be known as the ''Messier objects''. Messier's purpose for the catalogue was to help astronomical observers distinguish between permanent and transient visually diffuse objects in the sky. Biography Messier was born in Badonviller in the Lorraine region of France, the tenth of twelve children of Françoise B. Grandblaise and Nicolas Messier, a Court usher. Six of his brothers and sisters died while young, and his father died in 1741. Charles' interest in astronomy was stimulated by the appearance of the great six-tailed comet in 1744 and by an annular solar eclipse visible from his hometown on 25 July 1748. In 1751, Messier entered the employ of Joseph Nicolas Delisle, the astronomer of the French Navy, who instructed him to keep careful records of his observations. Messier's first doc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dwarf Galaxy
A dwarf galaxy is a small galaxy composed of about 1000 up to several billion stars, as compared to the Milky Way's 200–400 billion stars. The Large Magellanic Cloud, which closely orbits the Milky Way and contains over 30 billion stars, is sometimes classified as a dwarf galaxy; others consider it a full-fledged galaxy. Dwarf galaxies' formation and activity are thought to be heavily influenced by interactions with larger galaxies. Astronomers identify numerous types of dwarf galaxies, based on their shape and composition. Formation One theory states that most galaxies, including dwarf galaxies, form in association with dark matter, or from gas that contains metals. However, NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer space probe identified new dwarf galaxies forming out of gases with low metallicity. These galaxies were located in the Leo Ring, a cloud of hydrogen and helium around two massive galaxies in the constellation Leo. Because of their small size, dwarf galaxies have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Globular Cluster
A globular cluster is a spheroidal conglomeration of stars. Globular clusters are bound together by gravity, with a higher concentration of stars towards their centers. They can contain anywhere from tens of thousands to many millions of member stars. Their name is derived from Latin (small sphere). Globular clusters are occasionally known simply as "globulars". Although one globular cluster, Omega Centauri, was observed in antiquity and long thought to be a star, recognition of the clusters' true nature came with the advent of telescopes in the 17th century. In early telescopic observations globular clusters appeared as fuzzy blobs, leading French astronomer Charles Messier to include many of them in his catalog of astronomical objects that he thought could be mistaken for comets. Using larger telescopes, 18th-century astronomers recognized that globular clusters are groups of many individual stars. Early in the 20th century the distribution of globular clusters in the sky w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Starburst Region
A starburst is an astrophysical process that involves star formation occurring at a rate that is large compared to the rate that is typically observed. This starburst activity will consume the available interstellar gas supply over a timespan that is much shorter than the lifetime of the galaxy. For example, the nebula NGC 6334 has a star formation rate estimated to be 3600 solar masses per million years compared to the star formation rate of the entire Milky Way of about seven million solar masses per million years. Due to the high amount of star formation a starburst is usually accompanied by much higher gas pressure and a larger ratio of hydrogen cyanide to carbon monoxide emission-lines than are usually observed. Starbursts can occur in entire galaxies or just regions of space. A starburst region is a region of space that is undergoing a large amount of star formation. For example, the Tarantula Nebula is a nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud which has one of the highest sta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galaxy Merger
Galaxy mergers can occur when two (or more) galaxies collide. They are the most violent type of galaxy interaction. The gravitational interactions between galaxies and the friction between the gas and dust have major effects on the galaxies involved. The exact effects of such mergers depend on a wide variety of parameters such as collision angles, speeds, and relative size/composition, and are currently an extremely active area of research. Galaxy mergers are important because the merger rate is a fundamental measurement of galaxy evolution. The merger rate also provides astronomers with clues about how galaxies bulked up over time. Description During the merger, stars and dark matter in each galaxy become affected by the approaching galaxy. Toward the late stages of the merger, the gravitational potential (i.e. the shape of the galaxy) begins changing so quickly that star orbits are greatly altered, and lose any trace of their prior orbit. This process is called “violent r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galactic Bulge
In astronomy, a galactic bulge (or simply bulge) is a tightly packed group of stars within a larger star formation. The term almost exclusively refers to the central group of stars found in most spiral galaxies (see galactic spheroid). Bulges were historically thought to be elliptical galaxies that happened to have a disk of stars around them, but high-resolution images using the Hubble Space Telescope have revealed that many bulges lie at the heart of a spiral galaxy. It is now thought that there are at least two types of bulges: bulges that are like ellipticals and bulges that are like spiral galaxies. Classical bulges Bulges that have properties similar to those of elliptical galaxies are often called "classical bulges" due to their similarity to the historic view of bulges. These bulges are composed primarily of stars that are older, Population II stars, and hence have a reddish hue (see stellar evolution). These stars are also in orbits that are essentially random c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radio Astronomy
Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation coming from the Milky Way. Subsequent observations have identified a number of different sources of radio emission. These include stars and galaxies, as well as entirely new classes of objects, such as radio galaxies, quasars, pulsars, and masers. The discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation, regarded as evidence for the Big Bang theory, was made through radio astronomy. Radio astronomy is conducted using large radio antennas referred to as radio telescopes, that are either used singularly, or with multiple linked telescopes utilizing the techniques of radio interferometry and aperture synthesis. The use of interferometry allows radio astronomy to achieve high angular resolution, as the resolving power of an interferometer is set ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solar Mass
The solar mass () is a standard unit of mass in astronomy, equal to approximately . It is often used to indicate the masses of other stars, as well as stellar clusters, nebulae, galaxies and black holes. It is approximately equal to the mass of the Sun. This equates to about two nonillion (short scale), two quintillion (long scale) kilograms or 2000 quettagrams: The solar mass is about times the mass of Earth (), or times the mass of Jupiter (). History of measurement The value of the gravitational constant was first derived from measurements that were made by Henry Cavendish in 1798 with a torsion balance. The value he obtained differs by only 1% from the modern value, but was not as precise. The diurnal parallax of the Sun was accurately measured during the transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769, yielding a value of (9 arcseconds, compared to the present value of ). From the value of the diurnal parallax, one can determine the distance to the Sun from the geometry o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supermassive Black Hole
A supermassive black hole (SMBH or sometimes SBH) is the largest type of black hole, with its mass being on the order of hundreds of thousands, or millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun (). Black holes are a class of astronomical objects that have undergone gravitational collapse, leaving behind spheroidal regions of space from which nothing can escape, not even light. Observational evidence indicates that almost every large galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its Central massive object, center. For example, the Milky Way has a Galactic Center#Supermassive black hole, supermassive black hole in its Galactic Center, corresponding to the Astronomical radio source, radio source Sagittarius A*. Accretion (astrophysics), Accretion of Interstellar medium, interstellar gas onto supermassive black holes is the process responsible for powering Active galactic nucleus, active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and quasars. Two supermassive black holes have been directly imaged by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isophote
In geometry, an isophote is a curve on an illuminated surface that connects points of equal brightness. One supposes that the illumination is done by parallel light and the brightness is measured by the following scalar product: :b(P)= \vec n(P)\cdot \vec v=\cos\varphi where is the unit normal vector of the surface at point and the unit vector of the light's direction. If , i.e. the light is perpendicular to the surface normal, then point is a point of the surface silhouette observed in direction Brightness 1 means that the light vector is perpendicular to the surface. A plane has no isophotes, because every point has the same brightness. In astronomy, an isophote is a curve on a photo connecting points of equal brightness. J. Binney, M. Merrifield: ''Galactic Astronomy'', Princeton University Press, 1998, , p. 178. Application and example In computer-aided design, isophotes are used for checking optically the smoothness of surface connections. For a surface (implicit or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
