NGC 1387 is a lenticular galaxy in the constellation Fornax, in the Fornax Cluster. It was discovered by William Herschel on December 25, 1835. At a distance of 53 million light-years, it is one of the closer members of the Fornax Cluster. It has a magnitude of 10.8, which makes NGC 1387 one of the brighter galaxies in the Fornax Cluster and it is 60 000 light-years across. It is only 12

arcminutes A minute of arc, arcminute (arcmin), arc minute, or minute arc, denoted by the symbol , is a unit of angular measurement equal to of one degree. Since one degree is of a turn (or complete rotation), one minute of arc is of a turn. The na ...

from the central galaxy

NGC 1399 NGC 1399 is a large elliptical galaxy in the Southern constellation Fornax (constellation), Fornax, the central galaxy in the Fornax Cluster. The galaxy is 66 million light-years away from Earth. With a diameter of 130 000 light-years, it is ...

, which makes it one of the closest galaxies to

. NGC 1387 is an early-type galaxy with a

Hubble classification The Hubble sequence is a morphological classification scheme for galaxies invented by Edwin Hubble in 1926. It is often colloquially known as the Hubble tuning-fork diagram because the shape in which it is traditionally represented resembles a t ...

of (R')SAB(s)0. It has a clear, normal-looking non-ansae type bar embedded in a very extensive envelope, which is structureless except for the bar. Observations in 2006 discovered a large nuclear ring around NGC 1387, in a bulge-subtracted 2.2 micron image. Despite their name, early-type galaxies are much older than spiral galaxies, and mostly comprise old, red-colored stars. Very little star formation occurs in these galaxies; the lack of star formation in elliptical galaxies appears to start at the center and then slowly propagates outward. This is an early-type lenticular galaxy, with similar nature to early-type elliptical galaxies. NGC 1387 is rich with globular clusters, with an estimated number of clusters of 406 ± 81. However, unlike similar galaxies NGC 1374 and NGC 1379, which have an almost equal number of blue and red globular clusters, NGC 1387's globular cluster system is mostly composed of red globular clusters, with only a small fraction of blue globular clusters. This may be caused by gravitational interactions with the massive central galaxy

, which probably stripped off most of the globular clusters from NGC 1387. The globular clusters of NGC 1387, like globulars in NGC 1379 and NGC 1374, did not show any evidence of multiple populations.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:NGC 1387 Elliptical galaxies Lenticular galaxies Fornax Cluster

1387 Year 1387 ( MCCCLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events January–December * Elizabeta Kotromanic, mother of Mary, Queen of Hungary and the regent of Hungar ...

13344 Fornax