NGC 1097

NGC 1097 (also known as Caldwell 67) is a barred spiral galaxy about 45 million light years away in the constellation Fornax. It was discovered by William Herschel on 9 October 1790. It is a severely interacting galaxy with obvious tidal debris and distortions caused by interaction with the companion galaxy NGC 1097A.[3] Three supernovae (SN 1992bd, SN 1999eu, and SN 2003B) have been observed in NGC 1097 since 1992.[4]

NGC 1097
NGC 1097 as taken from VLT
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
ConstellationFornax
Right ascension 02h 46m 19.0s[1]
Declination−30° 16′ 30″[1]
Redshift1271 ± 3 km/s[1]
Distance45 million ly [2]
Apparent magnitude (V)10.2[1]
Characteristics
Type(R'_1:)SB(r'l)bSy1[1]
Apparent size (V)9′.3 × 6′.3[1]
Other designations
ESO 416- G 20, PGC 10488, UGCA 041[1] Arp 77[1] Caldwell 67

General information

NGC 1097 is also a Seyfert galaxy. Deep photographs revealed four narrow optical jets that appear to emanate from the nucleus. These have been interpreted as manifestations of the (currently weak) active nucleus. Subsequent analysis of the brightest jet's radio-to-X-ray spectral energy distribution were able to rule out synchrotron and thermal free-free emission. The optical jets are in fact composed of stars. The failure to detect atomic hydrogen gas in the jets (under the assumption that they were an example of tidal tails) using deep 21 cm HI imaging with the Very Large Array radio telescope and numerical simulations led to the current interpretation that the jets are actually the shattered remains of a cannibalized dwarf galaxy.

NGC 1097 has a supermassive black hole at its center, which is 140 million times the mass of the Sun.[5][6] Around the central black hole is a glowing ring of star-forming regions with a network of gas and dust that spirals from the ring to the black hole. An inflow of material toward the central bar of the galaxy causes new stars to be created in the ring. The ring is approximately 5,000 light-years in diameter, the spiral arms of the galaxy extend tens of thousands of light-years beyond the ring.[5]

NGC 1097 has two satellite galaxies, NGC 1097A and NGC 1097B. Dwarf elliptical galaxy NGC 1097A is the larger of the two. It is a peculiar elliptical galaxy that orbits 42,000 light-years from the center of NGC 1097. Dwarf galaxy NGC 1097B (5 x 106 solar masses), the outermost one, was discovered by its HI emission, and appears to be a typical dwarf irregular. Little else is known about it.

  • Star forming ring in NGC 1097. HST. 0.9′ view
  • Colour-composite image of the central 5,500 light-years wide region of the spiral galaxy NGC 1097, obtained with the NACO adaptive optics on the VLT. Credit: ESO
  • False-colour image of NGC 1097 in infrared, from the Spitzer Space Telescope
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See also

References
  1. "NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database". Results for NGC 1097. Retrieved 25 November 2006.
  2. "Feeding the Monster: New VLT Images Reveal the Surroundings of a Super-massive Black Hole". European Southern Observatory. Archived from the original on 15 August 2009. Retrieved 15 March 2008.
  3. Buta, Ronald J; Corwin, Harold G; Odewahn, Stephen C (2007). The de Vaucouleurs Atlas of Galaxies. Cambridge University Press. p. 193. ISBN 978-0-521-82048-6.
  4. Harrington, Philip S. (2010). Cosmic Challenge: The Ultimate Observing List for Amateurs. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 351. ISBN 978-1-139-49368-0.
  5. "Astronomers Measure Mass of Supermassive Black Hole in NGC 1097 | Astronomy | Sci-News.com". www.sci-news.com. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  6. Onishi, K.; Iguchi, S.; Sheth, K.; Kohno, K. (10 June 2015). "A Measurement of the Black Hole Mass in NGC 1097 Using ALMA". The Astrophysical Journal. 806 (1): 39. arXiv:1506.05917. Bibcode:2015ApJ...806...39O. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/806/1/39. ISSN 0004-637X.


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