NGC 1407 is an

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 ...

in Eridanus. It is at a distance of 76 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. It is the brightest galaxy in the NGC 1407 Group, part of the

Eridanus Group The Eridanus Group, sometimes called the Eridanus Cloud, is a nearby loose grouping of galaxies at a mean distance of approximately 75 Mly (23 ± 2 Mpc) in the constellation Eridanus. Redshift values show that there are approximately 200 gal ...

, with NGC 1407 being its brightest member. NGC 1400, the second-brightest of the group lies 11.8 arcmin away. NGC 1407 is X-ray luminous, with high hot gas Fe abundance, and with evidence of recurrent radio outbursts. In the central area of the galaxy are present old stars, with mean age 12.0 ± 1.1 Gyrs, that are metal rich and with supersolar abundances of α-elements. Observations indicate that NGC 1407 hasn't recently undergone strong star-formation activity. The galaxy hosts 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 ...

with a mass 1.12 ± 0.42 billion

solar mass The solar mass () is a standard unit of mass in astronomy, equal to approximately . It is often used to indicate the masses of other stars, as well as stellar clusters, nebulae, galaxies and black holes. It is approximately equal to the mass ...

es, based on velocity dispersion. The galaxy was discovered by 6 October 1785 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 ...

Gallery

File:NGC 1407 DSS.jpg, DSS image of NGC 1407 File:NGC 1407 PanS.jpg,

Pan-STARRS The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS1; List of observatory codes, obs. code: IAU code#F51, F51 and Pan-STARRS2 obs. code: IAU code#F52, F52) located at Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii, US, consists of astronomical c ...

image of NGC 1407 File:NGC 1407 group legacy dr10.jpg, NGC 1407 group with the legacy surveys

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:NGC 1407 Eridanus Group Eridanus (constellation) Elliptical galaxies

1407 Year 1407 ( MCDVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events January–December * April 10 – After several invitations by the Yongle Emperor of China since 1403 ...

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