NGC 1386 is a

spiral galaxy Spiral galaxies form a class of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work ''The Realm of the Nebulae''Eridanus. It is located at a distance of circa 53 million

light year 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 ...

s from Earth, which, given its apparent dimensions, means that NGC 1386 is about 50,000 light years across. It is 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 ...

, the only one in Fornax Cluster.

Observation history

NGC 1386 was discovered by

Johann Friedrich Julius Schmidt Johann Friedrich Julius Schmidt (25 October 1825 in Eutin, Germany – 7 February 1884 in Athens, Greece) was a German astronomer and geophysicist. He was the director of the National Observatory of Athens in Greece from 1858 to 1884. Julius Schmi ...

on January 19, 1865. Julius Schmidt was then director of the

National Observatory of Athens The National Observatory of Athens (NOA; el, Εθνικό Αστεροσκοπείο Αθηνών) is a research institute in Athens, Greece. Founded in 1842, it is the oldest research foundation in Greece, as it was the first scientific resea ...

and he was inspecting the Cape catalogue nebulae with a 6 ft

refractor A refracting telescope (also called a refractor) is a type of optical telescope that uses a lens (optics), lens as its objective (optics), objective to form an image (also referred to a dioptrics, dioptric telescope). The refracting telescope d ...

. Along with NGC 1386, he also discovered the nearby galaxies NGC 1381, NGC 1382,

NGC 1389 NGC commonly refers to: * New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars, a catalogue of deep sky objects in astronomy NGC may also refer to: Companies * NGC Corporation, name of US electric company Dynegy, Inc. from 1995 to 1998 * Nat ...

, and NGC 1428. The publication of their discovery was delayed by 10 years and was published in 1876 with the work ''Über einige im Cape-Catalog fehlende Nebel''.

Characteristics

NGC 1386 is seen nearly edge-on and it has been classified both as a spiral and as a lenticular galaxy. It features a spiral pattern with dust lanes. No

HII 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 ...

s are visible in the images of the Carnegie Atlas of Galaxies,Sandage, A., Bedke, J. (1994), ''The Carnegie Atlas of Galaxies. Volume I'', Carnegie Institution of Washington however HII emission has been detected in the arms. Dust features have also being observed at the central region of the galaxy. Based on observations by the

Herschel Space Telescope The Herschel Space Observatory was a space observatory built and operated by the European Space Agency (ESA). It was active from 2009 to 2013, and was the largest infrared telescope ever launched until the launch of the James Webb Space Teles ...

the total dust mass of NGC 1386 is estimated to be and the stellar mass . The galaxy has two ring structures, with diameters of 0.5 and 1.67 arcminutes.

Active galactic nucleus

NGC 1386 has an active galactic nucleus (AGN) that has been categorised as a type 2

. It is one of the nearest Seyfert galaxies. The source of nuclear activity in galaxies is suggested to be material accretion around a supermassive black hole in the galactic centre. The black hole in the centre of NGC 1386 is estimated to be based on stellar velocity dispersion. The central region of NGC 1386 has three distinct kinematic components. The first has low velocity dispersion (approximately 90 km/s) and is identified as gas rotating in the galaxy disk. The second is observed in the inner 150 pc around the continuum peak and has two components, one redshifted and one blueshifted, which are identified as a bipolar outflow with an outflow rate of 0.1 per year. The third element appears in velocity residual images and could be gas streaming inwards along the spiral. The galaxy disk has elevated emission at the location it intersects with the radiation from the AGN. Observations in 8.4 GHz radio waves by 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 ...

reveal the presence of a linear radio feature extending to the south of the nucleus and a marginally detectable north extension. The brightest part of the south extension is 0".52 from the central source. Ionised gas is detected north and south of the nucleus in a position similar to the radio emission but a comparison with optical images shows no direct association. A linear feature has also been observed by

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 ...

in IIIand II+

Hα H-alpha (Hα) is a specific deep-red visible spectral line in the Balmer series with a wavelength of 656.28 nm in air and 656.46 nm in vacuum; it occurs when a hydrogen electron falls from its third to second lowest energy level. H-alpha ...

with similar characteristics as the radio one. An emission plume extending for one arcsecond east-northeast of the nucleus was also observed. No trace of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission has been detected in mid-

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 ...

observations of the central 20 pc of NGC 1386, while there is mild

silicate In chemistry, a silicate is any member of a family of polyatomic anions consisting of silicon and oxygen, usually with the general formula , where . The family includes orthosilicate (), metasilicate (), and pyrosilicate (, ). The name is al ...

absorption, which may be associated with a dust

torus In geometry, a torus (plural tori, colloquially donut or doughnut) is a surface of revolution generated by revolving a circle in three-dimensional space about an axis that is coplanar with the circle. If the axis of revolution does not tou ...

around the AGN. VST image of the Fornax Galaxy Cluster

Observations by

BeppoSAX BeppoSAX was an Italian–Dutch satellite for X-ray astronomy which played a crucial role in resolving the origin of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the most energetic events known in the universe. It was the first X-ray mission capable of simultaneous ...

and

Chandra X-Ray Observatory The Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO), previously known as the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), is a Flagship-class space telescope launched aboard the during STS-93 by NASA on July 23, 1999. Chandra is sensitive to X-ray sources 1 ...

suggested that the nucleus of NGC 1386 is obscured by a Compton thick column, with high column density, estimated to be cm⁻² as measured by

NuSTAR NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, also named Explorer 93 and SMEX-11) is a NASA space-based X-ray telescope that uses a conical approximation to a Wolter telescope to focus high energy X-rays from astrophysical sources, especiall ...

. The observations imply that the torus covers much of the nucleus. The torus obscures much of the soft X-ray spectrum, but harder X-rays, as indicated by the Fe-Kα line manage to get through and be observed. NGC 1386 has a corona with faint diffuse soft

X-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...

emission that appears distorted at its outer parts. NGC 1386 has been found to host a cosmic water

maser A maser (, an acronym for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) is a device that produces coherent electromagnetic waves through amplification by stimulated emission. The first maser was built by Charles H. Townes, Ja ...

. It also features a HII region at the circumnuclear region. The border between the narrow-line region that is photionisated by the AGN, and the surrounding HII regions is estimated to be at 6 arcseconds form the nucleus. That corresponds to 310 parsecs at the distance of NGC 1386. A faint, inclined ring of emission extending up to 12 arcseconds from the nucleus can be seen in II+ Hα images, indicating also the presence of HII regions in the circumnuclear region.

Nearby galaxies

NGC 1386 is considered to be part of the Fornax Cluster. However, the redshift of NGC 1386 is smaller than that of the cluster and this has led to the assumption it is a foreground galaxy. Makarov and Karachentsev grouped NGC 1386 in the NGC 1386 group, along with

and

NGC 1396 NGC 1396 is a dwarf elliptical galaxy located 61 millon light years away in the constellation of Fornax. The galaxy was discovered by astronomer Johann Friedrich Julius Schmidt, Julius Schmidt on January 19, 1865, and is a member of the Fornax Clu ...

References

External links

NGC 1386 on SIMBAD
{{DEFAULTSORT:NGC 1386 Spiral galaxies Lenticular galaxies Seyfert galaxies Eridanus (constellation) Fornax Cluster

1386 Year 1386 ( MCCCLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events January–December * February 24 – Elizabeth of Bosnia, the mother of the overthrown Queen Mary of ...