Object description (wikipedia.org):
NGC 3079 is a
barred spiral galaxy about
50 millionlight-years away, and located in the
constellationUrsa Major. A prominent feature of this galaxy is the "bubble" forming in the very center (see picture below). The
Supermassive black hole at the core has a mass of 2.4
+2.4−1.2×106
M☉.
Center bubble:
The bubble forming in the center of NGC 3079 is believed to be about 3000
light-years wide and to rise more than 3500 light-years above the disc of the galaxy. It is speculated that the bubble is being formed by particles streaming at high speeds, which were in turn caused by a large burst of
star formation. This current bubble is thought to have been created about one million years ago, and computer modeling suggests that there is an ongoing cycle of forming bubbles, with a new bubble forming approximately every 10 million years.
The
Twin Quasar(also known as
Twin QSO,
Double Quasar,
SBS 0957+561,
TXS 0957+561,
Q0957+561 or
QSO 0957+561 A/B), was discovered in 1979 and was the first identified
gravitationally lensed object. It is a
quasar that appears as two images, a result from gravitational lensing caused by the galaxy YGKOW G1 that is located directly between Earth and the quasar.
The Twin Quasar is a single quasar whose appearance is distorted by the gravity of another galaxy much closer to Earth along the same line of sight. This
gravitational lensing effect is a result of the warping of
space-time by the nearby galaxy, as described by
general relativity. The single quasar thus appears as two separate images, separated by 6 arcseconds. Both images have an
apparent magnitude of 17, with the A component having 16.7 and the B component having 16.5. There is a 417 ± 3-day time lag between the two images.The Twin Quasar lies at
redshiftz = 1.41 (8.7 billion
ly), while the lensing galaxy lies at redshift
z = 0.355 (3.7 billion
ly). The lensing galaxy with apparent dimension of 0.42×0.22
arcminutes lies almost in line with the B image, lying 1
arcsecond off. The quasar lies 10 arcminutes north of
NGC 3079, in the
constellationUrsa Major. The astronomical data services
SIMBAD and
NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) list several other names for this system.
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