Maffei 2 is an

intermediate spiral galaxy An intermediate spiral galaxy is a galaxy that is in between the classifications of a barred spiral galaxy and an unbarred spiral galaxy. It is designated as SAB in the galaxy morphological classification system devised by Gerard de Vaucouleur ...

about

10 million 10,000,000 (ten million) is the natural number following 9,999,999 and preceding 10,000,001. In scientific notation, it is written as 107. In South Asia except for Sri Lanka, it is known as the crore. In Cyrillic numerals, it is known as the vr ...

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 away in the

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 ...

Cassiopeia Cassiopeia or Cassiopea may refer to: Greek mythology * Cassiopeia (mother of Andromeda), queen of Aethiopia and mother of Andromeda * Cassiopeia (wife of Phoenix), wife of Phoenix, king of Phoenicia * Cassiopeia, wife of Epaphus, king of Egy ...

. Maffei 2 and Maffei 1 were both discovered by

Paolo Maffei Paolo Maffei (2 January 1926 – 1 March 2009) was an Italian astrophysics, astrophysicist and science writer. He was born in Arezzo and was director of the Catania Observatory and an astronomer at Arcetri, Bologna, Asiago and Hamburg. ...

in 1968 from their infrared emission. Maffei 2 lies in the

Zone of Avoidance The Zone of Avoidance (ZOA, ZoA), or Zone of Galactic Obscuration (ZGO), is the area of the sky that is obscured by the Milky Way. The Zone of Avoidance was originally called the Zone of Few Nebulae in an 1878 paper by English astronomer Richard ...

and is about 99.5% obscured by 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 ...

's foreground dust clouds, and as a result is barely detectable at optical wavelengths. It had been suggested soon after its discovery that Maffei 2 may be a member of the

Local Group The Local Group is the galaxy group that includes the Milky Way, where Earth is located. It has a total diameter of roughly , and a total mass of the order of . It consists of two collections of galaxies in a " dumbbell" shape; the Milky Way ...

, but it is now thought to be a member of another nearby group, the IC 342/Maffei Group, the

galaxy group A galaxy group or group of galaxies (GrG) is an aggregation of galaxies comprising about 50 or fewer gravitationally bound members, each at least as luminous as the Milky Way (about 1010 times the luminosity of the Sun); collections of galaxi ...

that is the closest to the Local Group.

References

External links

* * * * * {{sky, 02, 41, 55.1, +, 59, 36, 15 Intermediate spiral galaxies IC 342/Maffei Group Cassiopeia (constellation) 10217 Sharpless objects Astronomical objects discovered in 1968 UGCA objects

See also

References

External links