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Credit & Copyright: Martin Pugh
Explanation:
Enigmatic spiral galaxy
NGC 1097
shines in southern skies, about
45 million light-years away in the chemical constellation
Fornax.
Its blue spiral arms are mottled with pinkish star forming regions
in this colorful galaxy portrait.
They seem to have wrapped around a small companion galaxy below
and left of center, about 40,000 light-years from the spiral's luminous core.
That's not NGC 1097's most peculiar
feature, though.
The very deep exposure hints of faint,
mysterious jets, most easily seen to extend well beyond
the bluish arms toward the lower right.
In fact, four faint jets are ultimately
recognized
in optical images of NGC 1097.
The jets
trace an X centered on the galaxy's nucleus, but probably don't
originate there.
Instead, they could be fossil star streams,
trails left over from the
capture and disruption of a much smaller galaxy in the
large spiral's ancient past.
A Seyfert
galaxy, NGC 1097's nucleus also harbors a
supermassive black hole.
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: supermassive black hole - spiral galaxy
Publications with words: supermassive black hole - spiral galaxy
See also: