From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

NGC 3115

Galaxy in the constellation Sextans

Field	Value
name	NGC 3115
image	NGC 3115.jpg
image_size	300px
caption
type	S0−
constellation name	Sextans
epoch	J2000
ra	{{cite web
title	NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database
work	Results for NGC 3115
url	http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/
access-date	October 12, 2006}}
dec
dist_ly	31.6 ± 1.3 Mly (9.7 ± 0.4 Mpc){{cite journal
author	J. L. Tonry	display-authors=4	author2=A. Dressler	author3=J. P. Blakeslee	author4=E. A. Ajhar	author5=A. B. Fletcher	author6=G. A. Luppino	author7=M. R. Metzger	author8=C. B. Moore
title	The SBF Survey of Galaxy Distances. IV. SBF Magnitudes, Colors, and Distances
journal	Astrophysical Journal
date	2001
volume	546
issue	2
pages	681–693
bibcode	2001ApJ...546..681T	doi=10.1086/318301
arxiv	astro-ph/0011223	s2cid=17628238 }}
z	663 ± 4 km/s
appmag_v	9.9
size_v	7.2 × 2.5
names	Spindle Galaxy, UGCA 199, PGC 29265, Caldwell 53

| access-date=October 12, 2006}}

NGC 3115 (also called the Spindle Galaxy or Caldwell 53) is a field lenticular (S0) galaxy in the constellation Sextans. The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on February 22, 1787. At about 32 million light-years away from Earth, it is several times bigger than the Milky Way. It is a lenticular (S0) galaxy because it contains a disk and a central bulge of stars, but without a detectable spiral pattern. NGC 3115 is seen almost exactly edge-on, but was nevertheless mis-classified as elliptical. There is some speculation that NGC 3115, in its youth, was a quasar.

One supernova has been observed in NGC 3115: SN 1935B (type and mag. unknown).

Star formation

NGC 3115 has consumed most of the gas of its youthful accretion disk. It has very little gas and dust left that would trigger new star formation. The vast majority of its component stars are very old.

Black hole

In 1992 John Kormendy of the University of Hawaii and Douglas Richstone of the University of Michigan announced what was observed to be a supermassive black hole in the galaxy. Based on orbital velocities of the stars in its core, the central black hole has mass measured to be approximately one billion solar masses (). The galaxy appears to have mostly old stars and little or no activity. The growth of its black hole has also stopped.

In 2011, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory examined the black hole at the center of the large galaxy. A flow of hot gas toward the supermassive black hole has been imaged, making this the first time clear evidence for such a flow has been observed in any black hole. As gas flows toward the black hole, it becomes hotter and brighter. The researchers found the rise in gas temperature begins at about 700 light years from the black hole, giving the location of the Bondi radius. This suggests that the black hole in the center of NGC 3115 has a mass of about two billion , supporting previous results from optical observations. This would make NGC 3115 the nearest billion-solar-mass black hole to Earth.

References

(2000). "The Central Gas Systems of Early-Type Galaxies Traced by Dust Features, Based on the ''Hubble Space Telescope'' WFPC2 Archival Images". The Astronomical Journal.
O'Meara, Stephen James. (2002). "The Caldwell Objects". [[Cambridge University Press]].
Materne, J.. (April 1979). "The structure of nearby groups of galaxies - Quantitative membership probabilities". Astronomy and Astrophysics.
[https://www.wis-tns.org/object/1935B Transient Name Server entry for SN 1935B.] Retrieved 28 March 2023.
[http://www.cbat.eps.harvard.edu/lists/Supernovae.html Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams list of Supernovae.] Retrieved 28 March 2023.
Kormendy, J. and Richstone, D. "Evidence for a supermassive black hole in NGC 3115", Astrophysical Journal, Part 1, vol. 393, no. 2, July 10, 1992, p. 559-578.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

lenticular-galaxies field-galaxies sextans ngc-objects principal-galaxies-catalogue-objects caldwell-objects galaxies-discovered-in-1787 ugca-objects

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about NGC 3115 — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report