Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Pegasus (Peg)  ·  Contains:  NGC 7317  ·  NGC 7318  ·  NGC 7319  ·  NGC 7320
Stephan's Quintet, Robert.S
Stephan's Quintet
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Stephan's Quintet

Stephan's Quintet, Robert.S
Stephan's Quintet
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Stephan's Quintet

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Description

The interacting galaxies in Stephan’s Quintet lie at an approximate distance of 300 million light years and will eventually merge into a single large elliptical galaxy. The member of Stephan’s Quintet that is not physically associated with the compact group, NGC 7320, is considerably closer to us, at a distance of 39 million light years.

The galaxies in the middle of the group, NGC 7318A and NGC 7318B (mag. 14.4 and 13.9), have already begun to merge with each other. The collision has drawn out long tails of stars from each galaxy and triggered massive bursts of star forming activity.

NGC 7318B is falling into the centre of the group at a speed of several millions of kilometres per hour, causing an enormous intergalactic shock wave, one bigger than our galaxy. This was first detected in radio observations in the 1970s, when a filament of emission between the galaxies was discovered, but its nature was uncertain at the time. In visible light, the same region shows a green arc, a faint glow of ionized atomic hydrogen.

Comments

Revisions

  • Stephan's Quintet, Robert.S
    Original
  • Stephan's Quintet, Robert.S
    C
  • Stephan's Quintet, Robert.S
    D
  • Stephan's Quintet, Robert.S
    E
  • Stephan's Quintet, Robert.S
    F
  • Final
    Stephan's Quintet, Robert.S
    G

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Stephan's Quintet, Robert.S