Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Centaurus (Cen)  ·  Contains:  NGC 5128

Image of the day 04/03/2015

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    NGC 5128, Centaurus A, Geoff
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    NGC 5128, Centaurus A

    Image of the day 04/03/2015

    Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
      NGC 5128, Centaurus A, Geoff
      Powered byPixInsight

      NGC 5128, Centaurus A

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      Description

      The blue region in the bottom right corner is probably the flare from an out of field star.

      From Wikipedia:

      "Centaurus A or NGC 5128 is a prominent galaxy in the constellation of Centaurus. It was discovered in 1826 by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop from his home in Parramatta, in New South Wales, Australia. There is considerable debate in the literature regarding the galaxy's fundamental properties such as its Hubble type (lenticular galaxy or a giant elliptical galaxy) and distance (10–16 million light-years). NGC 5128 is one of the closest radio galaxies to Earth, so its active galactic nucleus has been extensively studied by professional astronomers. The galaxy is the fifth brightest in the sky.

      The center of the galaxy contains a supermassive black hole with a mass equivalent to 55 million solar masses, which ejects a relativistic jet that is responsible for emissions in the X-ray and radio wavelengths. By taking radio observations of the jet separated by a decade, astronomers have determined that the inner parts of the jet are moving at about one half of the speed of light. X-rays are produced farther out as the jet collides with surrounding gases resulting in the creation of highly energetic particles. The radio jets of Centaurus A are over a million light years long.

      Like other starburst galaxies, a collision is suspected to be responsible for the intense burst of star formation. Models have suggested that Centaurus A was a large elliptical galaxy which collided and merged with a smaller spiral galaxy."

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