This
Astrobin Debut Object is an interesting elliptical galaxy located 160 million light years away in the constellation of Triangulum at a declination of +35 degrees. It is a magnitude 13 galaxy which spans 1.4 arc-minutes in our apparent view. This corresponds to a diameter of 70,000 light years.
I find elliptical galaxies with dust lanes to be fascinating, and this is one of the best. The odd dust lane pattern extends from the core up to the right and then across to the left, widening slightly as it goes. The typical explanation is that we are looking at a “recent” merger of a spiral and an elliptical, and that soon the dust lane will be absorbed into the galactic halo.
I have an Astrobin collection devoted to elliptical dust bands
here. This object looks similar to
NGC 4753. For that galaxy, a 1992 study said that the dust band was originally in the form of an accretion disk from a merger with a gas rich dwarf galaxy, tilted at an angle of 15 degrees. This disk was then twisted by differential precession into the shape we see today, essentially a sheet being wrapped around by gravitation interaction. Perhaps something similar happened here.
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