Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Pegasus (Peg)
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UGC 11871, Gary Imm
UGC 11871, Gary Imm

UGC 11871

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
UGC 11871, Gary Imm
UGC 11871, Gary Imm

UGC 11871

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Description

This Astrobin Debut Object is a disturbed Seyfert galaxy located 370 million light years away in the constellation of Pegasus at a declination of +11 degrees.  The central bright portion of this object spans 0.5 arc-minute in our apparent view, which corresponds to a diameter of 50,000 light years.  The star streams increase this diameter to 120,000 light years.

This object has an interesting unique structure.  It looks like a hybrid galaxy – an elliptical main region with a disk-like star stream looping around it.    This loop, together with the bright Seyfert core, suggests that this object may be the result of a past galaxy merger.  

This object was studied as one of 8 isolated galaxies (i.e., no neighbors) which have significant disturbance, in the paper entitled Probe of Dark Galaxies via Disturbed/Lopsided Isolated Galaxies (2007).  The idea was that, since no nearby galaxies are around, perhaps dark matter is influencing the disturbance.  I suppose that is a possibility, but it seems more likely to me that 2 galaxies simply merged and left behind no significant remnants.

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