Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cetus (Cet)  ·  Contains:  84 Cet  ·  M 77  ·  NGC 1055  ·  NGC 1068  ·  NGC 1072  ·  PGC 10146  ·  PGC 10154  ·  PGC 10266  ·  PGC 1149938  ·  PGC 1154903  ·  PGC 1155368  ·  PGC 1158434  ·  PGC 1163475  ·  PGC 1164535  ·  PGC 1164595  ·  PGC 1168836  ·  PGC 1170132  ·  PGC 135658
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M77 and NGC1055 "The Face" in Cetus, Mau_Bard
M77 and NGC1055 "The Face" in Cetus, Mau_Bard

M77 and NGC1055 "The Face" in Cetus

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M77 and NGC1055 "The Face" in Cetus, Mau_Bard
M77 and NGC1055 "The Face" in Cetus, Mau_Bard

M77 and NGC1055 "The Face" in Cetus

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Description

Here we go with the dual galaxy system made up by M77 and NGC1055 at about 50 Mly.
As remarked in the trailer image, NGC1055, together with the two stars HD16835 and HD16786, forms a face shaped asterism. I've never seen any reference to this galaxy/star trio as an asterism, and I was the one who called it "The Face", not an official name.
The galaxy NGC1072 is much further away, at 360 Mly.

M77 Seyfert Galaxy
Also known as NGC1068 or the Squid Galaxy, is a barred spiral galaxy in Cetus, 47 Mly (14 Mpc) away from Earth. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1780. Both Messier and William Herschel described mistakenly this galaxy as a star cluster.
Infrared images of the inner part of the galaxy reveal a prominent bar not seen in visual light.
It is an active galaxy with an active galactic nucleus (AGN), which is obscured from view by astronomical dust at visible wavelengths. It is the brightest and one of the closest type 2 Seyfert galaxies (see below).
X-ray source 1H 0244+001 in Cetus has been identified as Messier 77. In February 2022 the European Southern Observatory found a cloud of cosmic dust at the centre of Messier 77 hiding a supermassive black hole. In November 2022, the IceCube collaboration announced the detection of a neutrino source emitted by the active galactic nucleus of Messier 77.

NGC1055
It is an edge-on spiral galaxy forming a binary system together with M77. These two are the largest galaxies of a small galaxy group that also includes NGC 1073 (out of the field, 1 degree north), and five other small irregular galaxies. A rough distance estimate for NGC 1055 is 52 Mly, with a diameter of about 116 kly. The separation between NGC1055 and M77 is about 7 Mly.

NGC1072
It is placed much further away than the two galaxies described above, at a Hubble distance of 360 Mly, and a diameter of 155 kly. The object was discovered only in 1881 by Édouard Stephan and later in 1898 by Stéphane Javelle.

Seyfert Galaxies
Seyfert galaxies are named after Carl Seyfert, who first described this class in 1943.
These are one of the two classes of active galaxies, along with quasars. They have quasar-like nuclei (very luminous sources of electromagnetic radiation that are outside of our own galaxy) with very high surface brightness whose spectra reveal strong, high-ionisation emission lines, but unlike quasars, their host galaxies are clearly detectable.
Seyfert galaxies account for about 10% of all galaxies.
These galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centers whose accretion discs are believed to be the source of the observed ultraviolet radiation.
Seen in visible light, most Seyfert galaxies look like normal spiral galaxies, but, when studied spectroscopically or under other wavelengths, it becomes clear the difference, in particular that the luminosity of their cores is of comparable intensity to the luminosity of whole galaxies the size of the Milky Way.

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M77 and NGC1055 "The Face" in Cetus, Mau_Bard