Spitzer finds galaxy with schizophrenia
Washington: Although some of them open and the other galaxies are thin disks as our spiral Milky Way, observations of the new program and the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope of the Sombrero galaxy at the same time.
Galaxy, which is round, oval shape, with the thin disk is an integral part of the interior, is one of the first known to exhibit characteristics of two different types. These results lead to a better understanding of the evolution of galaxies, a subject still little known.
"The hat is more complex than previously thought," said Dmitry Gadotti European Southern Observatory in Chile and lead author of the paper on the new results that appear in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
"The only way to understand both what we know about this galaxy is to think of it as two galaxies, one inside the other."
Located Sombrero Galaxy, also known as NGC 4594 and 28 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. From our point of view on Earth, we can see the thin edge of a flat disk and central bulge of stars, so that it resembles a wide-brimmed hat.
Astronomers do not know if the hard hat in the form of a loop or spiral, but agree that belong to this type of disk.
"Spitzer's help in revealing the secrets behind the object has been photographed thousands of times," said Sean Carey from the center of NASA's Spitzer Science at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena
