__NOTOC__ Malin 1 is a giant low surface brightness (LSB) spiral galaxy. It is located away in the constellation

Coma Berenices Coma Berenices is an ancient asterism in the northern sky, which has been defined as one of the 88 modern constellations. It is in the direction of the fourth galactic quadrant, between Leo and Boötes, and it is visible in both hemisphe ...

, near the North Galactic Pole. , it is the largest known spiral galaxy, with an approximate diameter of , thus over six times the diameter of our

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. ...

. It was discovered by

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either ...

David Malin David Frederick Malin (born 28 March 1941) is a British-Australian astronomer and photographer. He is principally known for his spectacular colour images of astronomical objects. A galaxy is named after him, Malin 1, which he discovered in ...

in 1986 and is the first LSB galaxy verified to exist. Its high surface brightness central spiral is across, with a bulge of . The central spiral is a SB0a type barred-spiral. Malin 1 is peculiar in several ways: its diameter alone would make it the largest barred spiral galaxy ever to have been observed. Malin 1 was found later to be interacting with two other galaxies, Malin 1B and SDSS J123708.91+142253.2. Malin 1B is located away from the high surface brightness central spiral of Malin 1, which may be responsible for the formation of the galaxy's central bar. Meanwhile, SDSS J123708.91+142253.2 is located within the huge, faint halo of Malin 1 and might have caused the formation of the extended low surface brightness disc through

tidal stripping Tidal stripping occurs when a larger galaxy pulls stars and other stellar material from a smaller galaxy because of strong tidal forces. An example of this scenario is the interacting pair of galaxies NGC 2207 and IC 2163, which are currently in ...

. Observations by Galaz ''et al.'' in April 2014 revealed a detailed view of the spiral structure of Malin 1 in optical bands. The galaxy exhibits giant and very faint spiral arms, with some segments up to in diameter. Other details, such as possible

stellar stream In astronomy, stellar kinematics is the observational study or measurement of the kinematics or motions of stars through space. Stellar kinematics encompasses the measurement of stellar velocities in the Milky Way and its satellites as well as t ...

s and formation regions, are revealed as well. The same authors also say that Malin 1 is larger than thought, with another estimated diameter of around .

Gallery

MALIN 1 (post-processed).jpg, Processed image of Malin 1 by Giuseppe Donatiello showing its weak spiral arms.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Malin 1 Barred spiral galaxies Low surface brightness galaxies Coma Berenices 42102 SDSS objects Astronomical objects discovered in 1986

Gallery

See also

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External links