Copyright:
Damian Peach/SEN
原文:
Astronomers turn detectives when trying to figure out the cause of startling sights like NGC 1316. Their investigation indicates that NGC 1316 is an enormous elliptical galaxy that started, about 100 million years ago, to devour a smaller spiral galaxy neighbor, NGC 1317, just above it. Supporting evidence includes the dark dust lanes characteristic of a spiral galaxy, and faint swirls and shells of stars and gas visible in this wide and deep image. One thing that remains unexplained is the unusually small globular star clusters, seen as faint dots on the image. Most elliptical galaxies have more and brighter globular clusters than NGC 1316. Yet the observed globulars are too old to have been created by the recent spiral collision. One hypothesis is that these globulars survive from an even earlier galaxy that was subsumed into NGC 1316. Another surprising attribute of NGC 1316, also known as Fornax A, is its giant lobes of gas that glow brightly in radio waves. News Flash: Ceres’ Bright Spots Seen in Striking New Detail
中文翻譯:
👀🌌 天文學家化身偵探，調查驚人的天文現象，例如NGC 1316（又稱Fornax A）。這是龐大的橢圓星系，約在一億年前開始吞併附近的小型螺旋星系NGC 1317。
🔍 調查結果顯示，NGC 1316呈現出螺旋星系特有的黑暗塵埃條紋，圖像中還隱約可見星星和氣體的漸層漩渦和殼狀結構。但一個仍然未解的謎團，是這些異常小的球狀星團—作為圖像中微弱的點，這些球狀星團在大多數橢圓星系中更為明亮且數量更多，但它們的年齡卻太老，無法是最近螺旋碰撞產生的。 一個假設是，這些星團可能源自更早的星系，早已被吞併進入NGC 1316。
📡 另一個令人驚訝的特徵是NGC 1316的巨大氣體波瓣，在無線電波中明亮發光。
#NGC1316 #FornaxA #天文學 #星系 #宇宙奇觀 #星團之謎 #空間偵探 #浩瀚宇宙 #星際旅行 #天文探索
來源:NASA每日圖片
