NGC 1097 (also known as Caldwell 67) is a

barred spiral galaxy A barred spiral galaxy is a spiral galaxy with a central bar-shaped structure composed of stars. Bars are found in about two thirds of all spiral galaxies, and generally affect both the motions of stars and interstellar gas within spiral galaxi ...

about 45 million

light years A light-year, alternatively spelled light year, is a large unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers (), or 5.88 trillion miles ().One trillion here is taken to be 1012 ...

away in the

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the e ...

Fornax Fornax () is a constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere, partly ringed by the celestial river Eridanus. Its name is Latin for furnace. It was named by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1756. Fornax is one of the 88 modern ...

. It was discovered by

William Herschel Frederick William Herschel (; german: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel; 15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) was a German-born British astronomer and composer. He frequently collaborated with his younger sister and fellow astronomer Caroline H ...

on 9 October 1790. It is a severely interacting galaxy with obvious tidal debris and distortions caused by interaction with the companion galaxy NGC 1097A. Three

supernova A supernova is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. It has the plural form supernovae or supernovas, and is abbreviated SN or SNe. This transient astronomical event occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or when ...

e have been observed in NGC 1097: SN 1992bd ( type II, mag. 15), SN 1999eu (type II-pec, mag. 19.7), and SN 2003B (type II, mag. 17.6).

General information

NGC 1097 is also a

Seyfert galaxy Seyfert galaxies are one of the two largest groups of active galaxies, along with quasars. They have quasar-like nuclei (very luminous, distant and bright sources of electromagnetic radiation) with very high surface brightnesses whose spectra ...

. Deep photographs revealed four narrow optical jets that appear to emanate from the nucleus. These have been interpreted as manifestations of the (currently weak) active nucleus. Subsequent analysis of the brightest jet's radio-to-X-ray spectral energy distribution were able to rule out synchrotron and thermal free-free emission. The optical jets are in fact composed of stars. The failure to detect atomic hydrogen gas in the jets (under the assumption that they were an example of tidal tails) using deep 21 cm HI imaging with the

Very Large Array The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) is a centimeter-wavelength radio astronomy observatory located in central New Mexico on the Plains of San Agustin, between the towns of Magdalena and Datil, ~ west of Socorro. The VLA comprises twen ...

radio telescope and numerical simulations led to the current interpretation that the jets are actually the shattered remains of a cannibalized dwarf galaxy. NGC 1097 has a

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 obj ...

at its center, which is 140 million times the mass of the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

. Around the central black hole is a glowing ring of

star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...

-forming regions with a network of gas and dust that spirals from the ring to the black hole. An inflow of material toward the central bar of the galaxy causes new stars to be created in the ring. The ring is approximately 5,000 light-years in diameter, the spiral arms of the galaxy extend tens of thousands of light-years beyond the ring. NGC 1097 has two

satellite galaxies A satellite galaxy is a smaller companion galaxy that travels on bound orbits within the gravitational potential of a more massive and luminous host galaxy (also known as the primary galaxy). Satellite galaxies and their constituents are bound ...

, NGC 1097A and NGC 1097B. Dwarf elliptical galaxy NGC 1097A is the larger of the two. It is a peculiar

elliptical galaxy An elliptical galaxy is a type of galaxy with an approximately ellipsoidal shape and a smooth, nearly featureless image. They are one of the four main classes of galaxy described by Edwin Hubble in his Hubble sequence and 1936 work ''The R ...

that orbits 42,000 light-years from the center of NGC 1097. Dwarf galaxy NGC 1097B (5 x 10⁶ solar masses), the outermost one, was discovered by its HI emission, and appears to be a typical dwarf irregular. Little else is known about it. NGC 1097 and 1097A.jpg,

Ultraviolet Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nanometer, nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30 Hertz, PHz) to 400 nm (750 Hertz, THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than ...

GALEX Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX or Explorer 83 or SMEX-7) was a NASA orbiting space telescope designed to observe the universe in ultraviolet wavelengths to measure the history of star formation in the universe. In addition to paving the way ...

Coiled Galaxy.jpg,

Infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...

Spitzer Space Telescope The Spitzer Space Telescope, formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), was an infrared space telescope launched in 2003. Operations ended on 30 January 2020. Spitzer was the third space telescope dedicated to infrared astronomy, f ...

NGC1097 - HST - Potw2211a.jpg , Central region,

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...

NGC 1097 - Ring of Fire (crop).jpg, Ring of star birth, and dust, gas and debris from the galaxy, which are being funneled into the supermassive black hole at its centre.

, 2004 NGC1097 - ESO VLT - Ann22015a.jpg , … and with 8 meter diameter

Very Large Telescope The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is a telescope facility operated by the European Southern Observatory on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It consists of four individual telescopes, each with a primary mirror 8.2 m across, ...

and

adaptive optic Adaptive optics (AO) is a technology used to improve the performance of optical systems by reducing the effect of incoming wavefront distortions by deforming a mirror in order to compensate for the distortion. It is used in astronomical tele ...

, 2022

References

External links

VLT observations
– NGC 1097's "dog-leg" tidal stream

– NGC 1097: The Galaxy with the Longest known Optical Jets

– NGC 1097 in Fornax

– Very Large Telescope observations of NGC 1097

– In the Arms of NGC 1097 (2006-12-01)
The dance of stars and space
29 December 2012, Thomas Anderson, ''TG Daily'' * {{DEFAULTSORT:NGC 1097 Barred spiral galaxies Fornax (constellation)

1097 Year 1097 ( MXCVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place First Crusade * Spring – The Crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon attack the Byzantine imp ...

10488

077 Secret Agent 077 is a fictional superspy, lead character in a trilogy of Eurospy films starring Ken Clark as Dick Malloy (or Maloy).p.274 Blake, Matt & Deal, David ''The Eurospy Guide'' 2004 Luminary Press However "077" was used on posters or adv ...

067b Interacting galaxies 17901009 UGCA objects

General information

See also

References

External links