Galaxy with warped dust lane

Image showing a sky field in the southern constellation Hydra (The Water-snake) that includes the peculiar spiral galaxy ESO 510-13 . It resembles the famous "Sombrero" galaxy, but its equatorial dust plane is pronouncedly warped. The velocity is 3300 km/sec, the distance is about 170 million light-years and the size is 100,000 light-years. The fact that the dust band and the rest of this galaxy are not well aligned is a clear sign that the former was acquired recently (in astronomical terms). The dust band is still in the process of achieving a more stable state by becoming flat. It is not obvious how it was formed; it may for instance be the result of a merger with a gas-rich dwarf galaxy and the elliptical galaxy. In any case, this is a most interesting object that will undoubtedly soon be studied in more detail, with the VLT and other large telescopes. The photo displays a very large number of fainter objects near this galaxy. Many of these are likely to be globular clusters of stars associated with the galaxy; others are background galaxies. It would indeed appear that ESO 510-13 is located right in front of one or more, distant clusters of galaxies. This three-colour composite (BVI) was obtained with VLT ANTU and FORS in the morning of March 15, 1999. Field size: 6.8x6.8 arcmin 2 ; North is up and East is to the left.

Bildnachweis:

ESO

Über das Bild

ID:eso9924e
Typ:Beobachtung
Veröffentlichungsdatum:30. April 1999
Dazugehörige Veröffentlichungen:eso9924
Größe:2048 x 2049 px

Über das Objekt

Name:ESO 510-13
Typ:Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
Entfernung:150 Million Lichtjahre
Constellation:Hydra
Kategorie:Galaxies

Bildformate

Großes JPEG
3,2 MB

Bildschirm-Hintergrundbilder

1024x768
383,9 KB
1280x1024
755,1 KB
1600x1200
1,3 MB
1920x1200
1,7 MB
2048x1536
2,6 MB

Koordinaten

Position (RA):13 55 4.16
Position (Dec):-26° 46' 46.48"
Field of view:6.83 x 6.83 arcminutes
Orientierung:Die Nordrichtung liegt 0.1° rechts zur Vertikale

Farben & Filter

SpektralbereichTeleskop
Optisch
B
Very Large Telescope
FORS1
Optisch
V
Very Large Telescope
FORS1
Infrarot
I
Very Large Telescope
FORS1