Wild's Triplet is a
group
A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together.
Groups of people
* Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity
* Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic iden ...
of three small, interacting
spiral galaxies
Spiral galaxies form a class of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work ''The Realm of the Nebulae''[galaxies
A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. ...]
are visible 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 ...
Virgo
Virgo may refer to:
*Virgo (astrology), the sixth astrological sign of the zodiac
*Virgo (constellation), a constellation
*Virgo Cluster, a cluster of galaxies in the constellation Virgo
*Virgo Stellar Stream, remains of a dwarf galaxy
*Virgo Supe ...
. The triplet has luminous connecting bridges and is located some 200 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 away. The aforementioned bridges are probably formed as a result of gravitational tidal interactions among the galaxies. The triplet is named after the British-born and Australia-based astronomer
Paul Wild (1923–2008), who studied the trio in the early 1950s.
See also
*
Zwicky's Triplet
Zwicky's Triplet (Arp 103) is a group of three galaxies visible in the constellation Hercules.
The other Zwicky's Triplet
IC 3481 at 12h 32m, +11° 24' (2000.0) in Virgo, which is connected to PGC 41646 ("IC 3481A") as the system Arp 175, but ...
*
Robert's Quartet
Robert's Quartet is a compact galaxy group approximately 160 million light-years away in the constellation Phoenix. It is a family of four very different galaxies whose proximity to each other has caused the creation of about 200 star-forming re ...
*
Stephan's Quintet
Stephan's Quintet is a visual grouping of five galaxies of which four form the first compact galaxy group ever discovered. The group, visible in the constellation Pegasus, was discovered by Édouard Stephan in 1877 at the Marseille Observatory ...
*
NGC 7331 Group
NGC 7331 Group is a visual grouping of galaxies in the constellation Pegasus. Spiral galaxy NGC 7331 is a foreground galaxy in the same field as the collection, which is also called the ''Deer Lick Group''. It contains four other members, affe ...
(also known as the Deer Lick Group, about half a degree northeast of Stephan's Quintet)
*
Seyfert's Sextet
Seyfert's Sextet is a group of galaxies about 190 million light-years away in the constellation Serpens. The group appears to contain six members, but one of the galaxies, NGC 6027d, is a background object and another "galaxy," NGC 6027e, is ...
*
Copeland Septet
The Copeland Septet (also Copeland's Septet, Hickson Compact Group 57) is a group of galaxies in the constellation Leo that includes NGC 3748, NGC 3754, NGC 3750, NGC 3751, NGC 3745, NGC 3753 and NGC 3746. The group was discovered by Britis ...
References
Virgo (constellation)
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