Lynx (constellation)
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Lynx is a
constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The first constellati ...
named after
the animal ''The Animal'' is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Luke Greenfield, written by Tom Brady and Rob Schneider from a story conceived by Brady. It stars Schneider in the lead role, alongside Colleen Haskell, John C. McGinley, Guy Torry, an ...
, usually observed in the
Northern Celestial Hemisphere The northern celestial hemisphere, also called the Northern Sky, is the Northern Hemisphere, northern half of the celestial sphere; that is, it lies north of the celestial equator. This arbitrary sphere diurnal motion, appears to rotate westward ...
. The constellation was introduced in the late 17th century by
Johannes Hevelius Johannes Hevelius Some sources refer to Hevelius as Polish: * * * * * * * Some sources refer to Hevelius as German: * * * * *of the Royal Society * (in German also known as ''Hevel''; ; – 28 January 1687) was a councillor and mayor of Danz ...
. It is a faint constellation, with its brightest stars forming a zigzag line. The orange giant Alpha Lyncis is the brightest star in the constellation, and the
semiregular variable In astronomy, a semiregular variable star, a type of variable star, is a Red giant, giant or supergiant of intermediate and late (cooler) spectral type. It shows considerable periodicity in its light changes, accompanied or sometimes interrupted b ...
star Y Lyncis is a target for
amateur astronomers An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, self-taught, user-generated, DIY, and hobbyist. History ...
. Six
star system A star system or stellar system is a small number of stars that orbit each other, bound by gravity, gravitational attraction. It may sometimes be used to refer to a single star. A large group of stars bound by gravitation is generally calle ...
s have been found to contain
planets A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is generally required to be in orbit around a star, stellar remnant, or brown dwarf, and is not one itself. The Solar System has eight planets by the most restrictive definition of the te ...
. Those of 6 Lyncis and HD 75898 were discovered by the Doppler method; those of XO-2, XO-4, XO-5 and WASP-13 were observed as they passed in front of the host star. Within the constellation's borders lie
NGC 2419 NGC 2419 (also known as Caldwell 25) is a globular cluster in the constellation Lynx. It was discovered by William Herschel on December 31, 1788. NGC 2419 is at a distance of about 300,000 light years from the Solar System and at the same distanc ...
, an unusually remote
globular cluster A globular cluster is a spheroidal conglomeration of stars that is bound together by gravity, with a higher concentration of stars towards its center. It can contain anywhere from tens of thousands to many millions of member stars, all orbiting ...
; the galaxy NGC 2770, which has hosted three recent Type Ib supernovae; the distant
quasar A quasar ( ) is an extremely Luminosity, luminous active galactic nucleus (AGN). It is sometimes known as a quasi-stellar object, abbreviated QSO. The emission from an AGN is powered by accretion onto a supermassive black hole with a mass rangi ...
APM 08279+5255 APM, apm, or Apm may refer to: Technology Computer technology *Active policy management, a discipline within enterprise software *Advanced Power Management, a legacy technology in personal computers *Apple Partition Map, computer disk partitio ...
, whose light is magnified and split into multiple images by the
gravitational lens A gravitational lens is matter, such as a galaxy cluster, cluster of galaxies or a point particle, that bends light from a distant source as it travels toward an observer. The amount of gravitational lensing is described by Albert Einstein's Ge ...
ing effect of a foreground galaxy; and the Lynx Supercluster, which was the most distant
supercluster A supercluster is a large group of smaller galaxy clusters or galaxy groups; they are among the largest known structures in the universe. The Milky Way is part of the Local Group galaxy group (which contains more than 54 galaxies), which in tu ...
known at the time of its discovery in 1999.


History

Polish astronomer
Johannes Hevelius Johannes Hevelius Some sources refer to Hevelius as Polish: * * * * * * * Some sources refer to Hevelius as German: * * * * *of the Royal Society * (in German also known as ''Hevel''; ; – 28 January 1687) was a councillor and mayor of Danz ...
formed the constellation in 1687 from 19 faint stars between the constellations
Ursa Major Ursa Major, also known as the Great Bear, is a constellation in the Northern Sky, whose associated mythology likely dates back into prehistory. Its Latin name means "greater (or larger) bear", referring to and contrasting it with nearby Ursa M ...
and Auriga that earlier had been part of the obsolete constellation Jordanus Fluvius. Naming it Lynx because of its faintness, he challenged future stargazers to see it, declaring that only the lynx-eyed (those with good sight) would have been able to recognize it. Hevelius also used the name Tigris (Tiger) in his catalog but kept the former name only in his atlas. English astronomer
John Flamsteed John Flamsteed (19 August 1646 – 31 December 1719) was an English astronomer and the first Astronomer Royal. His main achievements were the preparation of a 3,000-star catalogue, ''Catalogus Britannicus'', and a star atlas called '' Atlas ...
adopted the constellation in his catalog, published in 1712, and his subsequent atlas. According to 19th-century amateur astronomer Richard Hinckley Allen, the chief stars in Lynx "might well have been utilized by the modern constructor, whoever he was, of our Ursa Major to complete the quartette of feet."


Characteristics

Lynx is bordered by
Camelopardalis Camelopardalis is a large but faint constellation of the northern sky representing a giraffe. The constellation was introduced in 1612 or 1613 by Petrus Plancius. Some older astronomy books give Camelopardalus or Camelopardus as alternative form ...
to the north, Auriga to the west, Gemini to the southwest,
Cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...
to the south, Leo to the east and
Ursa Major Ursa Major, also known as the Great Bear, is a constellation in the Northern Sky, whose associated mythology likely dates back into prehistory. Its Latin name means "greater (or larger) bear", referring to and contrasting it with nearby Ursa M ...
to the northeast. Covering 545.4 square degrees and 1.322% of the night sky, it ranks 28th of the 88 constellations in size, surpassing better known constellations such as Gemini. The three-letter abbreviation for the constellation, as adopted by the
International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; , UAI) is an international non-governmental organization (INGO) with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach, education, and developmen ...
in 1922, is "Lyn". The official constellation boundaries, as set by Belgian astronomer
Eugène Delporte Eugene is a common male given name that comes from the Greek εὐγενής (''eugenēs''), "noble", literally "well-born", from εὖ (''eu''), "well" and γένος (''genos''), "race, stock, kin".equatorial coordinate system The equatorial coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system widely used to specify the positions of astronomical object, celestial objects. It may be implemented in spherical coordinate system, spherical or Cartesian coordinate system, rect ...
, the
right ascension Right ascension (abbreviated RA; symbol ) is the angular distance of a particular point measured eastward along the celestial equator from the Sun at the equinox (celestial coordinates), March equinox to the (hour circle of the) point in questio ...
coordinates of these borders lie between and , and the
declination In astronomy, declination (abbreviated dec; symbol ''δ'') is one of the two angles that locate a point on the celestial sphere in the equatorial coordinate system, the other being hour angle. The declination angle is measured north (positive) or ...
coordinates are between +32.97° and +61.96°. On dark nights, the brighter stars can be seen as a crooked line extending roughly between Camelopardalis and Leo, and north of the bright star Castor. Lynx is most readily observed from the late winter to late summer to northern hemisphere observers, with midnight
culmination In observational astronomy, culmination is the passage of a celestial object (such as the Sun, the Moon, a planet, a star, constellation or a deep-sky object) across the observer's local meridian. These events are also known as meridian tran ...
occurring on 20 January. The whole constellation is visible to observers north of latitude 28°S.


Notable features


Stars

English astronomer
Francis Baily Francis Baily (28 April 177430 August 1844) was an English astronomer. He is most famous for his observations of " Baily's beads" during a total eclipse of the Sun. Baily was also a major figure in the early history of the Royal Astronomical S ...
gave a single star a
Bayer designation A Bayer designation is a stellar designation in which a specific star is identified by a Greek alphabet, Greek or Latin letter followed by the genitive case, genitive form of its parent constellation's Latin name. The original list of Bayer design ...
Alpha Lyncis—while Flamsteed numbered 44 stars, though several lie across the boundary in Ursa Major. Overall, there are 97 stars within the constellation's borders brighter than or equal to
apparent magnitude Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the Irradiance, brightness of a star, astronomical object or other celestial objects like artificial satellites. Its value depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance, and any extinction (astronomy), ...
6.5. The brightest star in this constellation is Alpha Lyncis, with an apparent (visual) magnitude of 3.14. It is an orange
giant In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: ''wiktionary:gigas, gigas'', cognate wiktionary:giga-, giga-) are beings of humanoid appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''gia ...
of
spectral type In astronomy, stellar classification is the classification of stars based on their spectral characteristics. Electromagnetic radiation from the star is analyzed by splitting it with a prism or diffraction grating into a spectrum exhibiting the ...
K7III located 203 ± 2
light-year A light-year, alternatively spelled light year (ly or lyr), is a unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equal to exactly , which is approximately 9.46 trillion km or 5.88 trillion mi. As defined by the International Astr ...
s distant from Earth. Around twice as massive as the
Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...
, it has exhausted the
hydrogen Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...
at its
core Core or cores may refer to: Science and technology * Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages * Core (laboratory), a highly specialized shared research resource * Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding * Core (optical fiber ...
and has evolved away from the
main sequence In astronomy, the main sequence is a classification of stars which appear on plots of stellar color index, color versus absolute magnitude, brightness as a continuous and distinctive band. Stars on this band are known as main-sequence stars or d ...
. The star has swollen to about 55 times the
Sun's radius Solar radius is a unit of distance used to express the size of objects in astronomy relative to the Sun. The solar radius is usually defined as the radius to the layer in the Sun's photosphere where the optical depth equals 2/3: 1\,R_ = 6.957\ti ...
and is emitting roughly 673 times the
luminosity of the Sun The solar luminosity () is a unit of radiant flux ( power emitted in the form of photons) conventionally used by astronomers to measure the luminosity of stars, galaxies and other celestial objects in terms of the output of the Sun. One nominal s ...
. The
stellar atmosphere The stellar atmosphere is the outer region of the volume of a star, lying above the stellar core, radiation zone and convection zone. Overview The stellar atmosphere is divided into several regions of distinct character: * The photosphere, whi ...
has cooled, giving it a surface temperature of 3,880  K. For Mbol, see Table 1. The only star with a
proper name A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa''; ''Jupiter''; ''Sarah''; ''Walmart'') as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, pl ...
is Alsciaukat (from the
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
for thorn), also known as 31 Lyncis, located 380 ± 10 light-years from Earth. This star is also an evolved giant with around twice the Sun's mass that has swollen and cooled since exhausting its core hydrogen. It is anywhere from 59 to 75 times as wide as the Sun, and 740 times as luminous. Alsciaukat is also a variable star, ranging in brightness by 0.05 magnitude over 25 to 30 days from its baseline magnitude of 4.25. Lynx is rich in
double star In observational astronomy, a double star or visual double is a pair of stars that appear close to each other as viewed from Earth, especially with the aid of optical telescopes. This occurs because the pair either forms a binary star (i.e. a ...
s. The second brightest star in the constellation is 38 Lyncis at magnitude 3.8. When viewed through a moderate telescope, the two components—a brighter blue-white star of magnitude 3.9 and a fainter star of magnitude 6.1 that has been described as lilac as well as blue-white—can be seen. 15 Lyncis is another star that is found to be a double system when viewed through a telescope, separating into two yellowish stars of magnitudes 4.7 and 5.8 that are 0.9 arcseconds apart. The components are a yellow giant of spectral type G8III that is around 4.01 times as massive as the Sun, and a yellow-white main sequence star of spectral type F8V that is around 3.73 times as massive as the Sun. Orbiting each other every 262 years, the stars are 178 ± 2 light years distant from Earth. 12 Lyncis has a combined apparent magnitude of 4.87. When seen through a telescope, it can be separated into three stars: two components with magnitudes 5.4 and 6.0 that lie at an
angular separation Angular distance or angular separation is the measure of the angle between the orientation of two straight lines, rays, or vectors in three-dimensional space, or the central angle subtended by the radii through two points on a sphere. When t ...
by 1.8 () and a yellow-hued star of magnitude 7.2 at a separation of 8.6″ (as of 1990). The two brighter stars are estimated to orbit each other with a period that is poorly known but estimated to be roughly 700 to 900 years. The 12 Lyncis system is 210 ± 10 light years distant from Earth. 10 Ursae Majoris is the third-brightest star in Lynx. Originally in the neighbouring constellation Ursa Major, it became part of Lynx with the official establishment of the constellation's borders. Appearing to be of magnitude 3.97, a telescope reveals a yellow-white main sequence star of spectral type F4V of magnitude 4.11 and a star very similar to the Sun of spectral type G5V and magnitude 6.18. The two are 10.6 
astronomical unit The astronomical unit (symbol: au or AU) is a unit of length defined to be exactly equal to . Historically, the astronomical unit was conceived as the average Earth-Sun distance (the average of Earth's aphelion and perihelion), before its m ...
s (au) apart and orbit each other every 21.78 years. The system is 52.4 ± 0.6 light-years distant from Earth. Likewise 16 Lyncis was originally known as Psi10 Aurigae and conversely, 37, 39, 41 and 44 Lyncis became part of Ursa Major. Y Lyncis is a popular target among amateur astronomers, as it is a
semiregular variable In astronomy, a semiregular variable star, a type of variable star, is a Red giant, giant or supergiant of intermediate and late (cooler) spectral type. It shows considerable periodicity in its light changes, accompanied or sometimes interrupted b ...
ranging in brightness from magnitude 6.2 to 8.9. These shifts in brightness are complex, with a shorter period of 110 days due to the star's pulsations, and a longer period of 1400 days possibly due to the star's rotation or regular cycles in its
convection Convection is single or Multiphase flow, multiphase fluid flow that occurs Spontaneous process, spontaneously through the combined effects of material property heterogeneity and body forces on a fluid, most commonly density and gravity (see buoy ...
. A
red supergiant Red supergiants (RSGs) are stars with a supergiant luminosity class ( Yerkes class I) and a stellar classification K or M. They are the largest stars in the universe in terms of volume, although they are not the most massive or luminous. Betelg ...
, it has an estimated diameter around 580 times that of the Sun, is around 1.5 to 2 times as massive, and has a
luminosity Luminosity is an absolute measure of radiated electromagnetic radiation, electromagnetic energy per unit time, and is synonymous with the radiant power emitted by a light-emitting object. In astronomy, luminosity is the total amount of electroma ...
around 25,000 times that of the Sun. 1 Lyncis and UX Lyncis are
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 t ...
s that are also semiregular variables with complex fluctuations in brightness.


Exoplanets

Six star systems have been found to contain
exoplanet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first det ...
s, of which two were discovered by the Doppler method and four by the transit method. 6 Lyncis, an orange subgiant that spent much of its life as an A-type or F-type main sequence star, is orbited by a planet with a
minimum mass In astronomy, minimum mass is the lower-bound calculated mass of observed objects such as planets, stars, binary systems, nebulae, and black holes. Minimum mass is a widely cited statistic for extrasolar planets detected by the radial velocit ...
of 2.4 Jupiter masses and an
orbital period The orbital period (also revolution period) is the amount of time a given astronomical object takes to complete one orbit around another object. In astronomy, it usually applies to planets or asteroids orbiting the Sun, moons orbiting planets ...
of 899 days. HD 75898 is a 3.8 ± 0.8 billion-year-old yellow star of spectral type G0V that has just begun expanding and cooling off the main sequence. It has a planet at least 2.51 times as massive as Jupiter orbiting with a period of around 418 days. The centre of mass of the system is accelerating, indicating there is a third, more distant, component at least the size of Jupiter. Three star systems were found to have planets that were observed by the
XO Telescope The XO Project is an international team of amateur and professional astronomers tasked with identifying extrasolar planets. They are led by Peter R. McCullough of the Space Telescope Science Institute. It is primarily funded by NASA's Origins Pro ...
in Hawaii as they passed in front of them. XO-2 is a
binary star system A binary star or binary star system is a Star system, system of two stars that are gravity, gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved ...
, both the stars of which are slightly less massive and cooler than the Sun and have planetary companions: XO-2S has a
Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 tim ...
-mass planet at 0.13 au distance with a period of around 18 days, and one a little more massive than
Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...
at a distance of 0.48 au and with a period of around 120 days, and XO-2N has a
hot Jupiter Hot Jupiters (sometimes called hot Saturns) are a class of gas giant exoplanets that are inferred to be physically similar to Jupiter (i.e. Jupiter analogue, Jupiter analogues) but that have very short orbital periods (). The close proximity to t ...
with around half Jupiter's mass that has an orbit of only 2.6 days. XO-4 is an F-type main sequence star that is a little hotter and more massive than the Sun that has a hot Jupiter orbiting with a period of around 4.1 days. XO-5 is a Sun-like star with a hot Jupiter about as massive as Jupiter that takes around 4.2 days to complete an orbit. WASP-13, a Sun-like star that has begun to swell and cool off the main sequence, had a transiting planet discovered by the SuperWASP program in 2009. The planet is around half as massive as Jupiter and takes 4.35 days to complete a revolution.


Deep-sky objects

Lynx's most notable
deep sky object A deep-sky object (DSO) is any astronomical object that is not an individual star or Solar System object (such as Sun, Moon, planet, comet, etc.). The classification is used for the most part by amateur astronomers to denote visually observed f ...
is
NGC 2419 NGC 2419 (also known as Caldwell 25) is a globular cluster in the constellation Lynx. It was discovered by William Herschel on December 31, 1788. NGC 2419 is at a distance of about 300,000 light years from the Solar System and at the same distanc ...
, also called the "Intergalactic Wanderer" as it was assumed to lie outside the
Milky Way The Milky Way or Milky Way Galaxy is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the #Appearance, galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars in other arms of the galax ...
. At a distance of between 275,000 and 300,000 light-years from Earth, it is one of the most distant known
globular cluster A globular cluster is a spheroidal conglomeration of stars that is bound together by gravity, with a higher concentration of stars towards its center. It can contain anywhere from tens of thousands to many millions of member stars, all orbiting ...
s within our galaxy. NGC 2419 is likely in a highly elliptical orbit around the Milky Way. It has a magnitude of +9.06 and is a Shapley class VII cluster. Originally thought to be a star, NGC 2419 was discovered to be a globular cluster by American astronomer Carl Lampland. NGC 2537, known as the Bear's Paw Galaxy, lies about 3 degrees north-northwest of 31 Lyncis. It is a blue compact dwarf galaxy that is somewhere between 17 and 30 million light-years away from Earth. Close by is IC 2233, a very flat and thin spiral galaxy that is between 26 and 40 million light-years away from Earth. A comparatively quiet galaxy with a low rate of star formation (less than one solar mass every twenty years), it was long suspected to be interacting with the Bear's Paw galaxy. This is now considered highly unlikely as observations with the
Very Large Array The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) is a centimeter-wavelength radio astronomy observatory in the southwestern United States built in the 1970s. It lies in central New Mexico on the Plains of San Agustin, between the towns of Magdalena, Ne ...
showed the two galaxies lie at different distances. The NGC 2841 group is a group of galaxies that lie both in Lynx and neighbouring Ursa Major. It includes the loose triplet NGC 2541, NGC 2500, and NGC 2552 within Lynx. Using cepheids of NGC 2541 as
standard candles 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 ...
, the distance to that galaxy (and the group) has been estimated at around 40 million light–years. NGC 2841 itself lies in Ursa Major. NGC 2770 is a type SASc
spiral galaxy Spiral galaxies form a galaxy morphological classification, class of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work ''The Realm of the Nebulae''
located about 88 million light–years away that has hosted Type Ib supernovae: SN 1999eh, SN 2007uy, and SN 2008D. The last of these is famous for being the first supernova detected by the
X-ray An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...
s released very early on in its formation, rather than by the optical
light Light, visible light, or visible radiation is electromagnetic radiation that can be visual perception, perceived by the human eye. Visible light spans the visible spectrum and is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400– ...
emitted during later stages, which allowed the first moments of the outburst to be observed. It is possible that NGC 2770's interactions with a suspected companion galaxy may have created the massive stars causing this activity. UGC 4904 is a galaxy located about 77 million light-years from Earth. On 20 October 2004, a supernova impostor was observed by Japanese amateur astronomer
Kōichi Itagaki is an amateur astronomer based in Yamagata, the capital city of Yamagata Prefecture in the Tōhoku region of northern Honshu island, Japan. He is responsible for discovering many comets, and over 170 supernovae.LBV star to a
Wolf–Rayet star Wolf–Rayet stars, often abbreviated as WR stars, are a rare heterogeneous set of stars with unusual spectroscopy, spectra showing prominent broad emission lines of ionised helium and highly ionised nitrogen or carbon. The spectra indicate very ...
, before it was observed erupting as
hypernova A hypernova is a very energetic supernova which is believed to result from an extreme core collapse scenario. In this case, a massive star (>30 solar masses) collapses to form a rotating black hole emitting twin astrophysical jets and surrounded b ...
SN 2006jc on October 11, 2006.
APM 08279+5255 APM, apm, or Apm may refer to: Technology Computer technology *Active policy management, a discipline within enterprise software *Advanced Power Management, a legacy technology in personal computers *Apple Partition Map, computer disk partitio ...
is a very distant, broad absorption line
quasar A quasar ( ) is an extremely Luminosity, luminous active galactic nucleus (AGN). It is sometimes known as a quasi-stellar object, abbreviated QSO. The emission from an AGN is powered by accretion onto a supermassive black hole with a mass rangi ...
discovered in 1998 and initially considered the most luminous object yet found. It is magnified and split into multiple images by the
gravitational lens A gravitational lens is matter, such as a galaxy cluster, cluster of galaxies or a point particle, that bends light from a distant source as it travels toward an observer. The amount of gravitational lensing is described by Albert Einstein's Ge ...
ing effect of a foreground galaxy through which its light passes. It appears to be a giant
elliptical galaxy An elliptical galaxy is a type of galaxy with an approximately ellipsoidal shape and a smooth, nearly featureless image. They are one of the three main galaxy morphological classification, classes of galaxy described by Edwin Hubble in his Hub ...
with a
supermassive black hole A supermassive black hole (SMBH or sometimes SBH) is the largest type of black hole, with its mass being on the order of hundreds of thousands, or millions to billions, of times the mass of the Sun (). Black holes are a class of astronomical ...
around 23 billion times as massive as the Sun and an associated
accretion disk An accretion disk is a structure (often a circumstellar disk) formed by diffuse material in orbital motion around a massive central body. The central body is most frequently a star. Friction, uneven irradiance, magnetohydrodynamic effects, and ...
that has a diameter of 3600 light years. The galaxy possesses large regions of hot dust and molecular gas, as well as regions with starburst activity. It has a cosmological
redshift In physics, a redshift is an increase in the wavelength, and corresponding decrease in the frequency and photon energy, of electromagnetic radiation (such as light). The opposite change, a decrease in wavelength and increase in frequency and e ...
of 3.911. While observing the quasar in 2008, astronomers using ESA's XMM Newton and the
Large Binocular Telescope The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) is an optical telescope for astronomy located on Mount Graham, in the Pinaleno Mountains of southeastern Arizona, United States. It is a part of the Mount Graham International Observatory. When using both ...
(LBT) in Arizona discovered the huge galaxy cluster
2XMM J083026+524133 2XMM J083026+524133 (2XMM J0830) is a very large galaxy cluster that lies 7.7 billion light-years away. It was discovered by chance by ESA's XMM Newton and the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona in 2008 while it was looking at the quasar ...
. The Lynx Supercluster is a remote
supercluster A supercluster is a large group of smaller galaxy clusters or galaxy groups; they are among the largest known structures in the universe. The Milky Way is part of the Local Group galaxy group (which contains more than 54 galaxies), which in tu ...
with a redshift of 1.26–1.27. It was the most distant supercluster known at the time of its discovery in 1999. It is made up of two main clusters of galaxies—RX J0849+4452 or Lynx E and RX J0848+4453 or Lynx W—and several smaller clumps. Further still lies the Lynx Arc, located around 12 billion light years away (a redshift of 3.357). It is a distant region containing a million extremely hot, young blue stars with surface temperatures of 80,000–100,000 K that are twice as hot as similar stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Only visible through gravitational lensing produced by a closer cluster of galaxies, the Arc is a feature of the early days of the universe, when "furious firestorms of star birth" were more common.


Meteor showers

The September Lyncids are a minor
meteor shower A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at ext ...
that appears around 6 September. They were historically more prominent, described as such by Chinese observers in 1037 and 1063, and Korean astronomers in 1560. The Alpha Lyncids were discovered in 1971 by Malcolm Currie, and appear between 10 December and 3 January.


See also

*
88 modern constellations by area The International Astronomical Union (IAU) designates 88 constellations of stars. In the table below, they are ranked by the solid angle that they subtend in the sky, measured in square degrees and millisteradians. These solid angles depend ...
*
Asterism (astronomy) An asterism is an observational astronomy, observed pattern or group of stars in the sky. Asterisms can be any identified star pattern, and therefore are a more general concept than the IAU designated constellations, 88 formally defined constel ...
* List of constellations * Lynx (Chinese astronomy) * NGC 2798


Notes


References

Sources * *


External links


The Deep Photographic Guide to the Constellations: Lynx
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lynx (Constellation) Northern constellations Constellations listed by Johannes Hevelius