NGC 759 | |
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![]() 2MASS image of NGC 759. | |
Observation data (J2000 epoch) | |
Constellation | Andromeda |
Right ascension | 01h 57m 50.3s [1] |
Declination | 36° 20′ 35″ [1] |
Redshift | 0.015567 [1] |
Heliocentric radial velocity | 4667 km/s [1] |
Distance | 230 Mly (70.4 Mpc) [1] |
Group or cluster | Abell 262 |
Apparent magnitude (V) | 13.3 [1] |
Characteristics | |
Type | E [1] |
Size | ~110,000 ly (33 kpc) (estimated) [1] |
Apparent size (V) | 1.6 × 1.4 [1] |
Other designations | |
MCG 6-5-67, PGC 7397, UGC 1440 [1] |
NGC 759 is an elliptical galaxy located 230 million light-years away [2] in the constellation Andromeda. NGC 759 was discovered by astronomer by Heinrich d'Arrest on September 17, 1865. [3] It is a member of Abell 262. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
Despite being classified as a radio galaxy, [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] the radio emission in NGC 759 could be due to star formation rather than an active galactic nucleus. [12] [13]
The central region of NGC 759 harbors a face-on dust disk with tightly wound spiral structure. The disk has a diameter of 11,000 ly (3.4 kpc ). [14] The dust disk also contains a smaller circumnuclear molecular gas ring that has star formation in H II regions. [15] [16] These features may be the result of a merger of gas-rich disk galaxies [15] [16] [17] or by the accretion of gas-rich material. In either scenario, the gas would have lost momentum and fallen to the center of the galaxy to produce the disk and current star formation. [17] However, Vlasyuk et al. suggests that the disk and the smaller circumnuclear molecular gas ring with star formation inside the main disk formed from a tidal encounter between NGC 759 and a large spiral galaxy which was accompanied by a substantial gas accretion. [16]
NGC 759 contains 2.4 billion M☉ of molecular gas. Most of the gas is concentrated in a circumnuclear molecular gas ring with a diameter of 4,200 ly (1.3 kpc ). [15] The gas may be the result of the same merger event that produced the circumnuclear molecular gas ring and the main disk. [16] [15] [17]
One supernova has been observed in NGC 759, [18] SN 2002fb, which was discovered on September 6, 2002. It was classified as a type Ia supernova. [19] [20] [21]