NGC 17, also known as NGC 34, is a

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''

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 ...

Cetus Cetus () is a constellation, sometimes called 'the whale' in English. The Cetus (mythology), Cetus was a sea monster in Greek mythology which both Perseus and Heracles needed to slay. Cetus is in the region of the sky that contains other water- ...

. It is the result of a merger between two disk galaxies, resulting in a recent

starburst MicroPro International Corporation was an American software company founded in 1978 in San Rafael, California. They are best known as the publisher of WordStar, a popular early word processor for personal computers. History Founding and early su ...

in the central regions and continuing starforming activity. The galaxy is still gas-rich, and has a single

galactic nucleus An active galactic nucleus (AGN) is a compact region at the center of a galaxy that emits a significant amount of energy across the electromagnetic spectrum, with characteristics indicating that this luminosity is not produced by the stars. Such e ...

. It lies 250 million light years away. It was discovered in 1886 by

Frank Muller Frank Muller (May 5, 1951 – June 4, 2008) was a stage and television actor, but was most famous as an audiobook narrator. Early life Muller was born in the Netherlands, the eldest of five children. His family immigrated to the United St ...

and then observed again later that year by

Lewis Swift Lewis A. Swift (February 29, 1820 – January 5, 1913) was an American astronomer who discovered 13 comets and 1,248 previously uncatalogued nebulae. Only William Herschel discovered more nebulae visually. Discoveries Swift discovered or co-disco ...

Due to the major merger event NGC 17 has no defined spiral arms like 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 ...

galaxy. Unlike the Milky Way, the center bar nucleus is also distorted. The merger destroyed any

galactic habitable zone In astrobiology and planetary astrophysics, the galactic habitable zone is the region of a galaxy in which life is most likely to develop. The concept of a galactic habitable zone analyzes various factors, such as metallicity (the presence of el ...

that may have been there before the merger. For the Milky Way, the galactic habitable zone is commonly believed to be an annulus with an outer radius of about 10

kiloparsec The parsec (symbol: pc) is a unit of length used to measure the large distances to astronomical objects outside the Solar System, approximately equal to or (AU), i.e. . The parsec unit is obtained by the use of parallax and trigonometry, a ...

s and an inner radius close to the

Galactic Center The Galactic Center is the barycenter of the Milky Way and a corresponding point on the rotational axis of the galaxy. Its central massive object is a supermassive black hole of about 4 million solar masses, which is called Sagittarius A*, a ...

, both of which lack hard boundaries.

Number in the New General Catalogue

NGC 17 and NGC 34 were catalogued by

and

, respectively, in 1886. A difference of half a degree in positioning between the two men's observations meant that when

John Dreyer John Dreyer may refer to: *John Louis Emil Dreyer, Danish-Irish astronomer *John Dreyer (footballer) John Brian Dreyer (born 11 June 1963) is an English former professional footballer and manager who played in defence and midfield. Playing care ...

created the ''

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 cluste ...

'' he listed them as separate objects. In 1900 Herbert Howe noticed the discrepancy; Dreyer included the update in the second edition of the NGC in 1910.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:NGC 0034 Unbarred spiral galaxies Peculiar galaxies Luminous infrared galaxies Cetus 0017 Markarian galaxies 00781 Galaxies discovered in 1886 18861121