Single Arm Galaxy

Esahubble_potw2012a_1024

esahubble_potw2012a March 23rd, 2020

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, I. Karachentsev

NGC 4618 was discovered on 9 April 1787 by the German-British astronomer, Wilhelm Herschel, who also discovered Uranus in 1781. Only a year before discovering NGC 4618, Herschel theorised that the foggy objects astronomers were seeing in the night sky were likely to be large star clusters located much further away then the individual stars he could easily discern. Since Herschel proposed his theory, astronomers have come to understand that what he was seeing was a galaxy. NGC 4618, classified as a barred spiral galaxy, has the special distinction amongst other spiral galaxies of only having one arm rotating around the centre of the galaxy. Located about 21 million light-years from our galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici, NGC 4618 has a diameter of about one third that of the Milky Way. Together with its neighbour, NGC 4625, it forms an interacting galaxy pair, which means that the two galaxies are close enough to influence each other gravitationally. These interactions may result in the two (or more) galaxies merging together to form a new formation, such as a ring galaxy.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw2012a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, None, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
NGC 4618
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Type > Spiral
Esahubble_potw2012a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 12h 41m 32.9s
DEC = 41° 8’ 46.7”
Orientation
North is 16.1° CCW
Field of View
3.2 x 3.3 arcminutes
Constellation
Canes Venatici

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (WFC3) Optical (I) 814.0 nm
Green Hubble (WFC3) Optical (V) 606.0 nm
Blue Hubble (ACS) Optical (B) 435.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Red
Green
Blue
Esahubble_potw2012a_1280
×
ID
potw2012a
Subject Category
C.5.1.1  
Subject Name
NGC 4618
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA, I. Karachentsev
Release Date
2020-03-23T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw2012a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
WFC3, WFC3, ACS
Color Assignment
Red, Green, Blue
Band
Optical, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
I, V, B
Central Wavelength
814, 606, 435
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
None, None, None
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
190.386919991, 41.1463118994
Reference Dimension
3815.0, 4004.0
Reference Pixel
1907.5, 2002.0
Scale
-1.38950003077e-05, 1.38950003077e-05
Rotation
16.139999999999993
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
http://www.spacetelescope.org
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
None
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
potw2012a
Metadata Date
2019-09-19T15:48:11+02:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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