Starship Asterisk*

http://messier.seds.org/m/m077.html wrote:

[url=http://www.universetoday.com/39131/messier-77/][size=150]M77 (NGC 1068)[/size][/url] [b][color=#0000FF][size=150]mini-quasar[/size][/color][/b]

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<<M77 (NGC 1068) is about 60 million light years distant, approximately the same distance but another direction as the Virgo Cluster, and is receding from us at about 1100 km/sec, as was first measured by Vesto M. Slipher of Lowell Observatory in 1914; it was the second galaxy with a large measured redshift after the Sombrero galaxy, M104 (R. Brent Tully's Nearby Galaxies Catalog gives a somewhat smaller value for the distance, 47 million light years, and values in other sources are spread both below and above the Virgo Cluster value; the higher values would make M77 the most remote Messier object).

From investigations of the inner disk's rotational velocities, E.M. Burbidge, G.R. Burbidge and K.H. Prendergast (1959) found that M77's inner disk in inclined against the line of sight by 51 degrees. They estimated the inner disk's mass at 27 billion solar masses, while the total mass of this galaxy must be of the order of 1 trillion solar masses.

This galaxy is unique and peculiar because of several reasons. First of all, its spectrum shows peculiar features in the form of broad emission lines, indicating that giant gas clouds are rapidly moving out of this galaxy's core, at several 100 km/sec. This feature was first discovered by Edward A. Fath of Lick Observatory in 1908 (Fath 1909) who identified six "Planetary Nebula type" emission lines (H Beta, [O II] 3727, [N III] 3869, [O III] 4363, 4959, 5007), confirmed by Vesto M. Slipher at Lowell Observatory in a much better spectrum in 1917 (Slipher 1917) and particularly mentioned by Edwin P. Hubble in his historic paper on "extragalactic nebulae" of 1926 (Hubble, 1926). It classifies M77 as a Seyfert galaxy of type II [like NGC 4945] (type I Seyfert galaxies exhibit an even larger expansion velocity of several 1000 km/sec); it is the nearest and brightest representative of this class of active galaxies. This remarkable class of galaxies is named after its discoverer, Carl K. Seyfert, who described them first in 1943 (Seyfert 1943).

An enormous energy source is required to generate this velocity, which must sit in the galaxy's core or nucleus. This core was found to be a strong radio source, which was discovered by Berbard Yarnton Mills in 1952 and designated Cetus A, and listed as 3C 71 in the Third Cambridge Catalogue of Radio Sources. It was investigated optically with the Hubble Space Telescope. Infrared investigations with the 10-meter Keck telescope by Caltech astronomers have revealed a strong pointlike source, less than 12 light-years in diameter, and surrounded by an elongated structure of 100 light years extension (a concentration of stars or interstellar matter); these structures were not apparent in the Hubble images in the visible light. M77, as well as other Seyfert galaxies, has been known to be bright infrared radiators since some time.

It were Donald E. Osterbrook and R.A.R. Parker in 1965 who brought up the hypothesis that the active nuclei of Seyfert galaxies might be thought of as miniature quasars (quasi-stellar radio sources), according to Burnham. This view has been confirmed now by decade-long research: Probably all types of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), including Seyfert nuclei, radio galaxies, quasars, BL Lacertae objects, and others, are caused by the same physical reason, a central supermassive object which accumulates gaseous matter from its surrounding neighborhood. The variety of observed phenomena is simply a consequence of different viewing angles and different rates of matter supply falling into the objects.

In case of M77, the central object which is responsible for the Seyfert activity has been found to have a mass of about 10 million solar masses, via IR observations from Caltech. Radio astronomers of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and the 100-meter-diameter radio telescope of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy at Effelsberg, Germany found a giant disk of some 5 light-years diameter orbiting this object, which contains water molecules (NRAO PR of January 15, 2000). >>

Boomer12k wrote: ... a very active place.

I wonder if an "active" Galaxy would have any affect on the life zone of a galaxy?

stephen63 wrote:Worst case scenario.....maybe.
So much for anything living in the nearby galaxy.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

stephen63 wrote:
Worst case scenario.....maybe.
So much for anything living in the nearby galaxy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3C_321 wrote:
<<3C 321 is a system of two galaxies rotating around each other. They are notable for showing the first observed galaxy SMITING another galaxy with a blast of energy, which is theorized to be from a supermassive black hole at the center of the former galaxy.

The larger galaxy, dubbed the "Death Star Galaxy" by NASA astronomers, has an energetic jet directed towards its companion. The discovery was announced by NASA Dec 18 2007. Observation of the enormous jet was possible due to the combined efforts of both space and ground-based telescopes.>>

• ..................................................................................
  • King Lear Act 3, Scene 2, Line 1
    
    • [Enter KING LEAR and 'Fool']
  KING LEAR: Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
  . You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
  . Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
  . You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
  . Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
  . Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
  . SMITE flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
  . Crack nature's moulds, an germens spill at once,
  . That make ingrateful man!
  ..................................................................................
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor Act 3, Scene 1
  SIR HUGH EVANS. Well, I will SMITE his noddles.
  ..................................................................................
  • Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Act 1, Scene 1
  HORATIO: He SMOTE the sledded Polacks on the ice. 'Tis strange.
  ..................................................................................
  • Coriolanus Act 3, Scene 1
  SICINIUS: Our aediles SMOTE? ourselves resisted?
  ..................................................................................
  • Love's Labour's Lost Act 4, Scene 3
  . So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not
  . To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,
  . As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have SMOTE
  . The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows:
  . Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright
  . Through the transparent bosom of the deep,
  . As doth thy face through tears of mine give light;
  . Thou shinest in every tear that I do weep:
  . No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;
  . So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.
  ..................................................................................
  • The Tempest Act 4, Scene 1
  ARIEL: they were red-hot with drinking;
  . So fun of valour that they SMOTE the air
  . For breathing in their faces; beat the ground
  . For kissing of their feet; yet always bending
  . Towards their project. Then I beat my tabour;
  . At which, like unback'd colts, they prick'd their ears,
  . Advanced their eyelids, lifted up their noses
  . As they smelt music: so I charm'd their ears
  . That calf-like they my lowing follow'd through
  . Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss and thorns,
  . Which entered their frail shins: at last I left them
  . I' the filthy-mantled pool beyond your cell,
  . There dancing up to the chins, that the foul lake
  . O'erstunk their feet.
  ..................................................................................
  • Othello, The Moor of Venice Act 5, Scene 2
  OTHELLO: Set you down this;
  . And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
  . Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk
  . Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
  . I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
  . And SMOTE him, thus.
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Whosoever shall SMITE thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. Matt. v. 39.
  And David . . . took thence a stone, and slang it, and SMOTE the Philistine in his forehead. 1 Sam. xvii. 49.

• Profpesy, and SMITE thine hands together. Ezek. xxi. 14.
  Saul . . . SMOTE the javelin into the wall. 1 Sam. xix. 10.

• The flax and the barely was SMITTEN. Ex. ix. 31.

• Let us not mistake God's goodness, nor imagine, because he SMITES us, that we are forsaken by him. Wake.

• The charms that SMITE the simple heart. Pope.
  SMITH with the love of sister arts we came. Pope.

stephen63 wrote:Worst case scenario.....maybe.
So much for anything living in the nearby galaxy.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Ann wrote:Really, though, this truly is a great APOD. Note how we can really see that NGC 4945 is very far away, because it's chock full of small stars - likely clusters - as if the entire galaxy had broken out in a tremendous case of many-colored hives! Note that the background around the galaxy doesn't have nearly as many stars and often not such small-looking stars. Also note how the dust in the galaxy is raging and boiling and forming fantastic structures.

NGC 4945 is a more-than-average "violent" galaxy, I'd say. But it really looks splendid here!

Ann

stephen63 wrote:That reminded me of a question I never took the time to get an answer to. If all those stars are indistinguishable from that great distance, how can you possibly target an individual star(Cepheid variable), even if they are very luminous, to determine it's distance?