NGC 4753’s remarkable and complex network of dust lanes winding around its galactic core defines its “peculiar” classification, and was probably the result of the galaxy’s merger with a nearby dwarf galaxy about 1.3 billion years ago. It is thought that there is.

NGC4753 is a lenticular galaxy located approximately 60 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo.

This galaxy, also known as LEDA 43671, UGC 8009, and IRAS 12498-0055, discovered It was proposed by German-born British astronomer William Herschel on February 22, 1784.

NGC 4753 is a member of the NGC 4753 group of galaxies in the Virgo II cloud, a series of at least 100 galaxy clusters and individual galaxies that extend away from the southern edge of the Virgo Supercluster.

“There is an astonishing number of galaxies in the observable universe, with recent estimates putting the number between 100 billion and 2 trillion,” Gemini astronomers said in a statement.

“And just like snowflakes, no two are exactly alike. However, they can be divided into four broad classes based on their appearance and physical characteristics: elliptical, lenticular, irregular, and spiral. , with many subclasses in between.”

“However, galaxies are dynamic objects that evolve over time while interacting with their surrounding environment, meaning that an individual galaxy can fall into multiple classifications over its lifetime. ”

In 1992, Indiana University astronomer Tom Steiman-Cameron and colleagues published A detailed study of NGC 4753 reveals that its complex shape is likely the result of a merger with a small companion galaxy.

“Galaxies that swallow other galaxies often look like train wrecks, but this is a train wreck galaxy,” said Dr. Steiman-Cameron.

Galactic mergers occur when two or more galaxies collide, mixing their material and significantly changing the shape and behavior of each galaxy involved.

In the case of NGC 4753, the once-standard lenticular galaxy is thought to have merged with a nearby gas-rich dwarf galaxy about 1.3 billion years ago.

The dwarf galaxy’s gas, combined with the burst of star formation caused by this galactic collision, injected large amounts of dust into the system.

The galaxy’s gravitational inward spiral spread out the accumulated dust into a disk. And this is where the story gets interesting.

Astronomers have discovered that a phenomenon known as differential precession is responsible for NGC 4753’s tangled dust lanes.

Precession occurs when a rotating object changes its axis of rotation, like a spinning top that loses momentum and wobbles. And differential means that the speed of precession is different depending on the radius.

For a dusty accretion disk orbiting around a galactic nucleus, the rate of precession is faster toward the center and slower near the edges.

This fluctuating wobble-like motion is due to the angle at which NGC 4753 and its former dwarf companion collided, and is responsible for the strongly twisted dust lanes that we see today wrapping around the galaxy’s luminescent core. It becomes.

“For a long time, no one knew what to make of this strange galaxy,” said Dr. Steiman-Cameron.

“But by starting with the idea that the accreted material fills the disk and analyzing the three-dimensional geometry, the mystery was solved.”

“Thirty years later, we are now incredibly excited to be able to see this highly detailed image with the Gemini South Telescope.”