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Nuclear Ring Galaxies, Gary Imm

Nuclear Ring Galaxies

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Nuclear Ring Galaxies, Gary Imm

Nuclear Ring Galaxies

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Description

The subject of this poster is Nuclear Rings, which are believed to occur in about 20% of all spiral galaxies.   As seen in all of the examples of the poster, nuclear rings are usually found in barred galaxies. 

The nuclear ring is the smallest of the galaxy ring structures.  They are often hidden in astrophotography images because of their small size and because they are easily lost in an overexposed bright core. 

These ring features are called nuclear rings because of their close proximity to the nucleus of the galaxy.  The size of these rings is surprisingly consistent from galaxy to galaxy, about 3,000 light years in diameter.  Note that these rings are internal within the bar and are not connected to the galaxy ring structure.

One characteristic of nuclear rings is a significant amount of starburst activity.  Often, multicolored bright hotspots are seen in the ring area.  This can be seen in the poster in NGC 1808, NGC 5248 and M100.

Although these structures are typically rings, they can also take on a spiral shape, as seen on the poster in NGC 4314 and NGC 613.  It has been suggested that these spirals are a channel for gas inflows to feed supermassive black holes.

If you would like to see more detail on any of these objects, each of the objects in the poster has previously been uploaded and described individually on Astrobin. They all reside in my Astrobin Nuclear Ring Collection.

If you would like to access all my DSO compilation posters, please click here.

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