|
Messier 90
Messier 90 (also known as M90 and NGC 4569) is an intermediate spiral galaxy exhibiting a weak inner ring structure about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. It was discovered by Charles Messier in 1781. Membership of the Virgo Cluster Messier 90 is a member of the Virgo Cluster, being one of its largest and brightest spiral galaxies, with an absolute magnitude of around −22 (brighter than the Andromeda Galaxy). The galaxy is found about 1.5° from the central subgroup of Messier 87. Due to the galaxy's interaction with the intracluster medium in its cluster, the galaxy has lost much of its interstellar medium. As a result of this process, which is referred to as ram-pressure stripping, the medium and star formation regions appear severely truncated compared to similar galaxies outside the Virgo Cluster and there are even H II regions outside the galactic plane, as well as long (up to 80,000-parsec—that is, 260,000-light-year) tails of ionized ga ... [...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] |
Parsec
The parsec (symbol: pc) is a unit of length used to measure the large distances to astronomical objects outside the Solar System, approximately equal to or (au), i.e. . The parsec unit is obtained by the use of parallax and trigonometry, and is defined as the distance at which 1 au subtends an angle of one arcsecond ( of a degree). This corresponds to astronomical units, i.e. 1\, \mathrm = 1/\tan \left( \ \mathrm \right)\, \mathrm. The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is about from the Sun. Most stars visible to the naked eye are within a few hundred parsecs of the Sun, with the most distant at a few thousand. The word ''parsec'' is a portmanteau of "parallax of one second" and was coined by the British astronomer Herbert Hall Turner in 1913 to make calculations of astronomical distances from only raw observational data easy for astronomers. Partly for this reason, it is the unit preferred in astronomy and astrophysics, though the light-year remains prominent in popular s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galactic Plane
The galactic plane is the plane on which the majority of a disk-shaped galaxy's mass lies. The directions perpendicular to the galactic plane point to the galactic poles. In actual usage, the terms ''galactic plane'' and ''galactic poles'' usually refer specifically to the plane and poles of the Milky Way, in which Planet Earth is located. Some galaxies are irregular and do not have any well-defined disk. Even in the case of a barred spiral galaxy like the Milky Way, defining the galactic plane is slightly imprecise and arbitrary since the stars are not perfectly coplanar. In 1959, the IAU defined the position of the Milky Way's north galactic pole as exactly RA = , Dec = in the then-used B1950 epoch; in the currently-used J2000 epoch, after precession is taken into account, its position is RA , Dec . This position is in Coma Berenices, near the bright star Arcturus; likewise, the south galactic pole lies in the constellation Sculptor. The "zero of longitude" of galactic coor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
H II Region
An H II region or HII region is a region of interstellar atomic hydrogen that is ionized. It is typically in a molecular cloud of partially ionized gas in which star formation has recently taken place, with a size ranging from one to hundreds of light years, and density from a few to about a million particles per cubic centimetre. The Orion Nebula, now known to be an H II region, was observed in 1610 by Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc by telescope, the first such object discovered. The regions may be of any shape because the distribution of the stars and gas inside them is irregular. Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, The short-lived blue stars created in these regions emit copious amounts of ultraviolet light that ionize the surrounding gas. H II regions—sometimes several hundred light-years across—are often associated with giant molecular clouds. They often appear clumpy and filamentary, sometimes showing intricate shapes such as the Horsehead Nebula. H II regio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Astrophysical Journal
''The Astrophysical Journal'', often abbreviated ''ApJ'' (pronounced "ap jay") in references and speech, is a peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ... scientific journal of astrophysics and astronomy, established in 1895 by American astronomers George Ellery Hale and James Edward Keeler. The journal discontinued its print edition and became an electronic-only journal in 2015. Since 1953 ''The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series'' (''ApJS'') has been published in conjunction with ''The Astrophysical Journal'', with generally longer articles to supplement the material in the journal. It publishes six volumes per year, with two 280-page issues per volume. ''The Astrophysical Journal Letters'' (''ApJL''), established in 1967 by Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Star Formation
Star formation is the process by which dense regions within molecular clouds in The "medium" is present further soon.-->interstellar space, sometimes referred to as "stellar nurseries" or "-forming regions", and form s. As a branch of , star formation includes the study of the |
Ram-pressure Stripping
Ram pressure is a pressure exerted on a body moving through a fluid medium, caused by relative bulk motion of the fluid rather than random thermal motion. It causes a drag force to be exerted on the body. Ram pressure is given in tensor form as :P_\text= \rho u_i u_j, where \rho is the density of the fluid; P_\text is the momentum flux per second in the i direction through a surface with normal in the j direction. u_i,u_j are the components of the fluid velocity in these directions. The total Cauchy stress tensor \sigma_ is the sum of this ram pressure and the isotropic thermal pressure (in the absence of viscosity). In the simple case when the relative velocity is normal to the surface, and momentum is fully transferred to the object, the ram pressure becomes :P_\text = \rho u^2. Derivation The Eulerian form of the Cauchy momentum equation for a fluid is :\rho\frac = -\vec \nabla p - \rho(\vec u \cdot \vec \nabla)\vec u + \rho \vec g for isotropic pressure p, where \v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interstellar Medium
In astronomy, the interstellar medium is the matter and radiation that exist in the space between the star systems in a galaxy. This matter includes gas in ionic, atomic, and molecular form, as well as dust and cosmic rays. It fills interstellar space and blends smoothly into the surrounding intergalactic space. The energy that occupies the same volume, in the form of electromagnetic radiation, is the interstellar radiation field. The interstellar medium is composed of multiple phases distinguished by whether matter is ionic, atomic, or molecular, and the temperature and density of the matter. The interstellar medium is composed, primarily, of hydrogen, followed by helium with trace amounts of carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen. The thermal pressures of these phases are in rough equilibrium with one another. Magnetic fields and turbulent motions also provide pressure in the ISM, and are typically more important, dynamically, than the thermal pressure is. In the interstellar medium, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intracluster Medium
In astronomy, the intracluster medium (ICM) is the superheated plasma that permeates a galaxy cluster. The gas consists mainly of ionized hydrogen and helium and accounts for most of the baryonic material in galaxy clusters. The ICM is heated to temperatures on the order of 10 to 100 megakelvins, emitting strong X-ray radiation. Composition The ICM is composed primarily of ordinary baryons, mainly ionised hydrogen and helium. This plasma is enriched with heavier elements, including iron. The average amount of heavier elements relative to hydrogen, known as metallicity in astronomy, ranges from a third to a half of the value in the sun. Studying the chemical composition of the ICMs as a function of radius has shown that cores of the galaxy clusters are more metal rich than at larger radii. In some clusters (e.g. the Centaurus cluster) the metallicity of the gas can rise to above that of the sun. Due to the gravitational field of clusters, metal-enriched gas ejected from supernova ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carnegie Institution Of Washington
The Carnegie Institution of Washington (the organization's legal name), known also for public purposes as the Carnegie Institution for Science (CIS), is an organization in the United States established to fund and perform scientific research. The institution is headquartered in Washington, D.C. , the Institution's endowment was valued at $926.9 million. In 2018 the expenses for scientific programs and administration were $96.6 million. Eric Isaacs is president of the institution. Name More than 20 independent organizations were established through the philanthropy of Andrew Carnegie and now feature his surname. They perform work involving topics as diverse as art, education, international affairs, world peace, and scientific research. In 2007, the Carnegie Institution of Washington adopted the public name "Carnegie Institution for Science" to distinguish itself from other organizations established by and named for Andrew Carnegie. The Institution remains officially and legall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Messier 87
Messier 87 (also known as Virgo A or NGC 4486, generally abbreviated to M87) is a supergiant elliptical galaxy with several trillion stars in the constellation Virgo. One of the largest and most massive galaxies in the local universe, it has a large population of globular clusters — about 15,000 compared with the 150–200 orbiting the Milky Way — and a jet of energetic plasma that originates at the core and extends at least , traveling at a relativistic speed. It is one of the brightest radio sources in the sky and a popular target for both amateur and professional astronomers. The French astronomer Charles Messier discovered M87 in 1781, and cataloged it as a nebula. M87 is about from Earth and is the second-brightest galaxy within the northern Virgo Cluster, having many satellite galaxies. Unlike a disk-shaped spiral galaxy, M87 has no distinctive dust lanes. Instead, it has an almost featureless, ellipsoidal shape typical of most giant elliptical gala ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
