NGC 1365, also known as the Fornax Propeller Galaxy or the Great Barred Spiral Galaxy, is a double-barred spiral galaxy about 56 million

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 ...

Fornax Fornax () is a constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere, partly ringed by the celestial river Eridanus (constellation), Eridanus. Its name is Latin for furnace. It was named by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1756. Forna ...

. It was discovered on 2 September

1826 Events January–March * January 15 – The French newspaper ''Le Figaro'' begins publication in Paris, initially as a satirical weekly. * January 17 – The Ballantyne printing business in Edinburgh (Scotland) crashes, ruining noveli ...

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

astronomer

James Dunlop James Dunlop FRSE (31 October 1793 – 22 September 1848) was a Scottish astronomer, noted for his work in Australia. He was employed by Sir Thomas Brisbane to work as astronomer's assistant at his private observatory, once located at Param ...

Characteristics

NGC 1365 is a large barred spiral galaxy in the

Fornax cluster The Fornax Cluster is a cluster of galaxies lying at a distance of 19 megaparsecs (62 million light-years). It has an estimated mass of solar masses, making it the second richest galaxy cluster within 100 million light-years, after the consider ...

. Within the larger long bar stretching across the center of the galaxy appears to be a smaller bar that comprises the core, with an apparent size of about 50 × 40. This second bar is more prominent in infrared images of the central region of the galaxy, and likely arises from a combination of dynamical instabilities of stellar orbits in the region, along with gravity, density waves, and the overall rotation of the disc. The inner bar structure likely rotates as a whole more rapidly than the larger long bar, creating the diagonal shape seen in images. The spiral arms extend in a wide curve north and south from the ends of the east–west bar and form an almost ring like Z-shaped halo. Astronomers think NGC 1365's prominent bar plays a crucial role in the galaxy's evolution, drawing gas and dust into a star-forming maelstrom and ultimately feeding material into the central black hole. NGC 1365, including its two outer spiral arms, spreads over around 300,000 light-years. Different parts of the galaxy take different times to make a full rotation around the core of the galaxy, with the outer parts of the bar completing one circuit in about 350 million years. NGC 1365 and other galaxies of its type have come to more prominence in recent years with new observations indicating that the Milky Way could also be a barred spiral galaxy. Such galaxies are quite common — two thirds of spiral galaxies are barred according to recent estimates, and studying others can help astronomers understand our own galactic home.

Supernovae

Four

supernovae A supernova (: supernovae or supernovas) is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. A supernova occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star, or when a white dwarf is triggered into runaway nuclear fusion. The original ob ...

have been observed in NGC 1365: * SN 1957C (type unknown, mag. 16.5) was discovered by H. S. Gates in October 1957. * SN 1983V ( type Ic, mag. 13.5) was discovered by

Robert Evans Robert Evans (born Robert J. Shapera; June 29, 1930 – October 26, 2019) was an American film producer who worked on ''Rosemary's Baby (film), Rosemary's Baby'' (1968), ''Love Story (1970 film), Love Story'' (1970), ''The Godfather'' (1972), ...

on November 25 1983, and independently discovered by P. O. Lindblad and P. Grosbol on 27 November 1983. * SN 2001du ( type II, mag. 14) was discovered by Robert Evans on August 24 2001. * SN 2012fr ( type Ia, mag. 14.7) was discovered by Alain Klotz on October 27 2012.

Supermassive black hole

The central

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 ...

in the active nucleus, which has a mass of about 2 million

solar masses The solar mass () is a frequently used unit of mass in astronomy, equal to approximately . It is approximately equal to the mass of the Sun. It is often used to indicate the masses of other stars, as well as stellar clusters, nebulae, galaxies ...

or half the mass of the Milky Way's central black hole

Sagittarius A* Sagittarius A*, abbreviated as Sgr A* ( ), is the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center of the Milky Way. Viewed from Earth, it is located near the border of the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius, about 5.6° south o ...

, rotates at close to the speed of light. These observations, announced in February 2013, were made using the X-ray telescope satellite NuSTAR.- Unambiguous Determination of the Spin of the Black Hole in NGC 1365
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References

External links

An Elegant Galaxy in an Unusual Light
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ESO The European Southern Observatory is an astronomical research organisation. ESO may also refer to: *Employee stock option (also: executive stock option) *'' Ether Saga Odyssey'', a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game *''The Elde ...

press release 22 September 2010
The Great Barred Spiral GalaxyFine Details in a Barred Galaxy
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press release 27 February 1999
Starry Bulges Yield Secrets to Galaxy Growth
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Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the Orbiting Solar Observatory, first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ...

press release October 6, 1999 01:00 PM (EDT)
Starry bulges yield secrets to galaxy growth
Lars Lindberg Christensen, ESA/Hubble news release 6 October 1999

(Release No.: 2013-07 : February 27, 2013)
NASA's NuSTAR Helps Solve Riddle of Black Hole Spin
NuSTAR Feb 27, 2013
EXTREME X-RAY VARIABILITY AND ABSORPTION IN NGC 1365

XMM-Newton ''XMM-Newton'', also known as the High Throughput X-ray Spectroscopy Mission and the X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission, is an X-ray space observatory launched by the European Space Agency in December 1999 on an Ariane 5 rocket. It is the second corners ...

*
NGC 1365 at Constellation Guide
{{DEFAULTSORT:NGC 1365 Barred spiral galaxies Seyfert galaxies Luminous infrared galaxies Fornax Cluster

1365 Year 1365 ( MCCCLXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. Events January–December * March 3 – Battle of Gataskogen: Albert of Mecklenburg defeats and captures Magnus Eriksson, obtaining the throne ...

13179 Fornax Articles containing video clips Discoveries_by_James_Dunlop Astronomical objects discovered in 1826

Characteristics

Supernovae

Supermassive black hole

See also

References

External links