|
NGC 5238
NGC 5238 is an irregular galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. Located at a comoving distance of 4.51 Mpc, it is 64.4 arcseconds in diameter. It has sometimes been classified as a blue compact dwarf galaxy. Although some authors have hypothesized it to be a member of the M101 Group of galaxies, it is currently believed to be an isolated galaxy. At an inclination of 39° with respect to Earth, NGC 5238 has a total mass of 117 million solar masses, with a star formation rate of 0.01 solar masses per year. Of the total mass, HI gas appears to account for 26 million solar masses. Classification In 1977, NGC 5238 was hypothesized to not be a single galaxy, but rather a pair of interacting galaxies. It was not until ten years later that a dedicated study of the galaxy's rotation curve was undertaken, showing that the galaxy is indeed a single galaxy. One of the two regions that was thought to be the nucleus of a galaxy was instead shown to be simply a large HII region aroun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New General Catalogue
The ''New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars'' (abbreviated NGC) is an astronomical catalogue of deep-sky objects compiled by John Louis Emil Dreyer in 1888. The NGC contains 7,840 objects, including galaxy, galaxies, star clusters and emission nebulae. Dreyer published two supplements to the NGC in 1895 and 1908, known as the ''Index Catalogues'' (abbreviated IC), describing a further 5,386 astronomical objects. Thousands of these objects are best known by their NGC or IC numbers, which remain in widespread use. The NGC expanded and consolidated the cataloguing work of William Herschel, William and Caroline Herschel, and John Herschel's ''General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars''. Objects south of the Celestial sphere, celestial equator are catalogued somewhat less thoroughly, but many were included based on observation by John Herschel or James Dunlop. The NGC contained multiple errors, but attempts to eliminate them were made by the ''Revised New Ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barred Spiral
A barred spiral galaxy is a spiral galaxy with a central bar-shaped structure composed of stars. Bars are found in about two thirds of all spiral galaxies in the local universe, and generally affect both the motions of stars and interstellar gas within spiral galaxies and can affect spiral arms as well. The Milky Way Galaxy, where the Solar System is located, is classified as a barred spiral galaxy. Edwin Hubble classified spiral galaxies of this type as "SB" (spiral, barred) in his Hubble sequence and arranged them into sub-categories based on how open the arms of the spiral are. SBa types feature tightly bound arms, while SBc types are at the other extreme and have loosely bound arms. SBb-type galaxies lie in between the two. SB0 is a barred lenticular galaxy. A new type, SBm, was subsequently created to describe somewhat irregular barred spirals, such as the Magellanic Clouds, which were once classified as irregular galaxies, but have since been found to contain barred spiral ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neutral Hydrogen
The hydrogen line, 21 centimeter line, or H I line is a spectral line that is created by a change in the energy state of solitary, electrically neutral hydrogen atoms. It is produced by a spin-flip transition, which means the direction of the electron's spin is reversed relative to the spin of the proton. This is a quantum state change between the two hyperfine levels of the hydrogen 1 s ground state. The electromagnetic radiation producing this line has a frequency of (1.42 GHz), which is equivalent to a wavelength of in a vacuum. According to the Planck–Einstein relation , the photon emitted by this transition has an energy of []. The constant of proportionality, , is known as the Planck constant. The hydrogen line frequency lies in the L band, which is located in the lower end of the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is frequently observed in radio astronomy because those radio waves can penetrate the large clouds of interstellar cosm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Distance Modulus
The distance modulus is a way of expressing distances that is often used in astronomy. It describes distances on a logarithmic scale based on the astronomical magnitude system. Definition The distance modulus \mu=m-M is the difference between the apparent magnitude m (ideally, corrected from the effects of interstellar absorption) and the absolute magnitude M of an astronomical object. It is related to the luminous distance d in parsecs by: \begin \log_(d) &= 1 + \frac \\ \mu &= 5\log_(d) - 5 \end This definition is convenient because the observed brightness of a light source is related to its distance by the inverse square law (a source twice as far away appears one quarter as bright) and because brightnesses are usually expressed not directly, but in magnitudes. Absolute magnitude M is defined as the apparent magnitude of an object when seen at a distance of 10 parsecs. If a light source has flux when observed from a distance of d parsecs, and flux when observed from a di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interstellar Reddening
In astronomy, extinction is the absorption and scattering of electromagnetic radiation by dust and gas between an emitting astronomical object and the observer. Interstellar extinction was first documented as such in 1930 by Robert Julius Trumpler. However, its effects had been noted in 1847 by Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, and its effect on the colors of stars had been observed by a number of individuals who did not connect it with the general presence of galactic dust. For stars lying near the plane of the Milky Way which are within a few thousand parsecs of the Earth, extinction in the visual band of frequencies (photometric system) is roughly 1.8 magnitudes per kiloparsec. For Earth-bound observers, extinction arises both from the interstellar medium and the Earth's atmosphere; it may also arise from circumstellar dust around an observed object. Strong extinction in Earth's atmosphere of some wavelength regions (such as X-ray, ultraviolet, and infrared) is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Giant
A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass (roughly 0.3–8 solar masses ()) in a late phase of stellar evolution. The stellar atmosphere, outer atmosphere is inflated and tenuous, making the radius large and the surface temperature around or lower. The appearance of the red giant is from yellow-white to reddish-orange, including the stellar classification, spectral types K and M, sometimes G, but also S-type star, class S stars and most carbon stars. Red giants vary in the way by which they generate energy: * most common red giants are stars on the red-giant branch (RGB) that are still stellar nucleosynthesis, fusing hydrogen into helium in a shell surrounding an inert helium core * red-clump stars in the cool half of the horizontal branch, fusing helium into carbon in their cores via the triple-alpha process * asymptotic-giant-branch (AGB) stars with a helium burning shell outside a degenerate carbon–oxygen core, and a hydrogen-burning shell just beyo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tip Of The Red Giant Branch
Tip of the red-giant branch (TRGB) is a primary distance indicator used in astronomy. It uses the luminosity of the brightest red-giant-branch stars in a galaxy as a standard candle to gauge the distance to that galaxy. It has been used in conjunction with observations from the Hubble Space Telescope to determine the relative motions of the Local Cluster of galaxies within the Local Supercluster. Ground-based, 8-meter-class telescopes like the VLT are also able to measure the TRGB distance within reasonable observation times in the local universe. Method The Hertzsprung–Russell diagram (HR diagram) is a plot of stellar luminosity versus surface temperature for a population of stars. During the core hydrogen burning phase of a Sun-like star's lifetime, it will appear on the HR diagram at a position along a diagonal band called the main sequence. When the hydrogen at the core is exhausted, energy will continue to be generated by hydrogen fusion in a shell around the core. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Standard Candle
The cosmic distance ladder (also known as the extragalactic distance scale) is the succession of methods by which astronomers determine the distances to celestial objects. A ''direct'' distance measurement of an astronomical object is possible only for those objects that are "close enough" (within about a thousand parsecs or 3e16 km) to Earth. The techniques for determining distances to more distant objects are all based on various measured correlations between methods that work at close distances and methods that work at larger distances. Several methods rely on a ''standard candle'', which is an astronomical object that has a known luminosity. The ladder analogy arises because no single technique can measure distances at all ranges encountered in astronomy. Instead, one method can be used to measure nearby distances, a second can be used to measure nearby to intermediate distances, and so on. Each rung of the ladder provides information that can be used to determine the distan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
21cm Line
The hydrogen line, 21 centimeter line, or H I line is a spectral line that is created by a change in the energy state of solitary, electrically neutral hydrogen atoms. It is produced by a spin-flip transition, which means the direction of the electron's spin is reversed relative to the spin of the proton. This is a quantum state change between the two hyperfine levels of the hydrogen 1 s ground state. The electromagnetic radiation producing this line has a frequency of (1.42 GHz), which is equivalent to a wavelength of in a vacuum. According to the Planck–Einstein relation , the photon emitted by this transition has an energy of []. The constant of proportionality, , is known as the Planck constant. The hydrogen line frequency lies in the L band, which is located in the lower end of the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is frequently observed in radio astronomy because those radio waves can penetrate the large clouds of interstellar cosm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stellar Stream
In astronomy, stellar kinematics is the observational study or measurement of the kinematics or motions of stars through space. Stellar kinematics encompasses the measurement of stellar velocities in the Milky Way and its satellites as well as the internal kinematics of more distant galaxies. Measurement of the kinematics of stars in different subcomponents of the Milky Way including the thin disk, the thick disk, the bulge, and the stellar halo provides important information about the formation and evolutionary history of our Galaxy. Kinematic measurements can also identify exotic phenomena such as hypervelocity stars escaping from the Milky Way, which are interpreted as the result of gravitational encounters of binary stars with the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center. Stellar kinematics is related to but distinct from the subject of stellar dynamics, which involves the theoretical study or modeling of the motions of stars under the influence of gravity. Stellar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Angular Size
The angular diameter, angular size, apparent diameter, or apparent size is an angular separation (in units of angle) describing how large a sphere or circle appears from a given point of view. In the vision sciences, it is called the '' visual angle'', and in optics, it is the '' angular aperture'' (of a lens). The angular diameter can alternatively be thought of as the angular displacement through which an eye or camera must rotate to look from one side of an apparent circle to the opposite side. A person can resolve with their naked eyes diameters down to about 1 arcminute (approximately 0.017° or 0.0003 radians). This corresponds to 0.3 m at a 1 km distance, or to perceiving Venus as a disk under optimal conditions. Formulation The angular diameter of a circle whose plane is perpendicular to the displacement vector between the point of view and the center of said circle can be calculated using the formula :\delta = 2\arctan \left(\frac\right), in which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semimajor Axis
In geometry, the major axis of an ellipse is its longest diameter: a line segment that runs through the center and both foci, with ends at the two most widely separated points of the perimeter. The semi-major axis (major semiaxis) is the longest semidiameter or one half of the major axis, and thus runs from the centre, through a focus, and to the perimeter. The semi-minor axis (minor semiaxis) of an ellipse or hyperbola is a line segment that is at right angles with the semi-major axis and has one end at the center of the conic section. For the special case of a circle, the lengths of the semi-axes are both equal to the radius of the circle. The length of the semi-major axis of an ellipse is related to the semi-minor axis's length through the eccentricity and the semi-latus rectum \ell, as follows: The semi-major axis of a hyperbola is, depending on the convention, plus or minus one half of the distance between the two branches. Thus it is the distance from the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
