Messier 110, or M110, also known as NGC 205, is a

dwarf elliptical galaxy Dwarf elliptical galaxies, or dEs, are elliptical galaxies that are smaller than ordinary elliptical galaxies. They are quite common in galaxy groups and clusters, and are usually companions to other galaxies. Examples "Dwarf elliptical" galaxie ...

that is a

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...

of the

Andromeda Galaxy The Andromeda Galaxy (IPA: ), also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224 and originally the Andromeda Nebula, is a barred spiral galaxy with the diameter of about approximately from Earth and the nearest large galaxy to the Milky Way. The gala ...

in the

Local Group The Local Group is the galaxy group that includes the Milky Way. It has a total diameter of roughly , and a total mass of the order of . It consists of two collections of galaxies in a "dumbbell" shape: the Milky Way and its satellites form ...

Early observational history

Charles Messier Charles Messier (; 26 June 1730 – 12 April 1817) was a French astronomer. He published an astronomical catalogue consisting of 110 nebulae and star clusters, which came to be known as the ''Messier objects''. Messier's purpose f ...

never included the galaxy in his list, but it was depicted by him, together with M32, on his drawing of "Nébuleuse D'Andromède", later known as the Andromeda Galaxy. A label of the drawing indicates that Messier first saw the object in 1773. M110 was independently discovered by

Caroline Herschel Caroline Lucretia Herschel (; 16 March 1750 – 9 January 1848) was a German born British astronomer, whose most significant contributions to astronomy were the discoveries of several comets, including the periodic comet 35P/Herschel–Rigolle ...

on August 27, 1783; her brother

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 ...

described her discovery in 1785. From p. 262: "There is a very considerable, broad, pretty faint, small nebula near it he Andromeda galaxy, M31 my Sister arolinediscovered it August 27, 1783, with a Newtonian 2-feet sweeper. It shews the same faint colour with the great one, and is, no doubt, in the neighborhood of it. It is not 32… ; but this is about two-thirds of a degree north preceding it, in a line parallel to β

eta Eta (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἦτα ''ē̂ta'' or ell, ήτα ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative in most dialects, ...

and ν uAndromedae." The suggestion to assign the galaxy a Messier number was made by Kenneth Glyn Jones in 1967, making it the last member of the Messier List.

Properties

This galaxy has a morphological classification of pec dE5, indicating a dwarf elliptical galaxy with a

flattening Flattening is a measure of the compression of a circle or sphere along a diameter to form an ellipse or an ellipsoid of revolution (spheroid) respectively. Other terms used are ellipticity, or oblateness. The usual notation for flattening is ...

of 50%. It is designated peculiar (pec) due to patches of dust and young blue stars near its center. This is unusual for dwarf elliptical galaxies in general, and the reason is unclear. Unlike M32, M110 lacks evidence for 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. The interstellar dust in M110 has a mass of with a temperature of , and the interstellar gas has . The inner region has sweeping deficiencies in its

interstellar medium In astronomy, the interstellar medium is the matter and radiation that exist in the space between the star systems in a galaxy. This matter includes gas in ionic, atomic, and molecular form, as well as dust and cosmic rays. It fills interstella ...

IM, most likely expelled by

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 ...

explosions. Tidal interactions with M31 may have stripped away a significant fraction of the expelled gas and dust, leaving the galaxy as a whole, as it presents, deficient in its IM density.

Nova A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramati ...

e have been detected in this galaxy, including one discovered in 1999, and another in 2002. The latter, designated EQ J004015.8+414420, had also been captured in images taken by the

Sloan Digital Sky Survey The Sloan Digital Sky Survey or SDSS is a major multi-spectral imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey using a dedicated 2.5-m wide-angle optical telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, United States. The project began in 2000 a ...

(SDSS) that October.

Local context

About half of the

Andromeda's satellite galaxies The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) has satellite galaxies just like the Milky Way. Orbiting M31 are at least 13 dwarf galaxies: the brightest and largest is M110, which can be seen with a basic telescope. The second-brightest and closest one to M31 is ...

are orbiting it along a highly flattened plane, with 14 out of 16 following the same sense of rotation. One theory proposes that these 16 once belonged to a subhalo surrounding M110, then the group was broken up by

tidal force The tidal force is a gravitational effect that stretches a body along the line towards the center of mass of another body due to a gradient (difference in strength) in gravitational field from the other body; it is responsible for diverse phenomen ...

s during a close encounter with Andromeda.

External links

Messier 110 Data Sheed and additional information
– Telescopius. (Deep Sky Objects Browser has been renamed and reformatted – the old links below no longer work correctly)
Messier 110 data sheet, altitude charts, sky map and related objects
– Deep Sky Objects Browser
Messier 110 amateur astrophotography
– Deep Sky Objects Browser *

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Messier 110 Dwarf elliptical galaxies Peculiar galaxies Local Group Andromeda Subgroup Andromeda (constellation)

110 110 may refer to: *110 (number), natural number *AD 110, a year *110 BC, a year *110 film, a cartridge-based film format used in still photography *110 (MBTA bus), Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority bus route *110 (song), 2019 song by Capi ...

NGC objects 00426 02429 2429 17730810 Discoveries by Caroline Herschel

Early observational history

Properties

Local context

See also

External links