spiral galaxy
Spiral galaxies form a class of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work ''The Realm of the Nebulae''Coma Berenices
Coma Berenices is an ancient asterism in the northern sky, which has been defined as one of the 88 modern constellations. It is in the direction of the fourth galactic quadrant, between Leo and Boötes, and it is visible in both hemisphe ...
, near the North Galactic Pole. , it is the largest known
spiral galaxy
Spiral galaxies form a class of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work ''The Realm of the Nebulae'' thus over six times the diameter of our
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked ey ...
. It was discovered by
astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either o ...
David Malin in 1986 and is the first LSB galaxy verified to exist. Its high surface brightness central spiral is across, with a bulge of . The central spiral is a SB0a type barred-spiral.
Malin 1 is peculiar in several ways: its diameter alone would make it the largest barred spiral galaxy ever to have been observed.
Malin 1 was found later to be interacting with two other galaxies, Malin 1B and SDSS J123708.91+142253.2. Malin 1B is located away from the high surface brightness central spiral of Malin 1, which may be responsible for the formation of the galaxy's central bar. Meanwhile, SDSS J123708.91+142253.2 is located within the huge, faint halo of Malin 1 and might have caused the formation of the extended low surface brightness disc through tidal stripping.
Observations by Galaz ''et al.'' in April 2014 revealed a detailed view of the spiral structure of Malin 1 in optical bands. The galaxy exhibits giant and very faint spiral arms, with some segments up to in diameter. Other details, such as possible stellar streams and formation regions, are revealed as well. The same authors also say that Malin 1 is larger than thought, with another estimated diameter of around .
Gallery
MALIN 1 (post-processed).jpg, Processed image of Malin 1 by Giuseppe Donatiello showing its weak spiral arms.
barred spiral galaxy
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, and generally affect both the motions of stars and interstellar gas within spiral galaxies ...
claimed in 2013 as largest spiral galaxy
* NGC 262, huge
lenticular galaxy
A lenticular galaxy (denoted S0) is a type of galaxy intermediate between an elliptical (denoted E) and a spiral galaxy in galaxy morphological classification schemes. It contains a large-scale disc but does not have large-scale spiral arms. ...
unbarred spiral galaxy
An unbarred spiral galaxyAstronomy Pictures(accessed 18 April 2010) is a type of spiral galaxy without a central bar, or one that is not a barred spiral galaxy. It is designated with an SA in the galaxy morphological classification scheme.
Ba ...