APOD: In the Center of Spiral Galaxy NGC 5033 (2017 Jan 09)

[APOD Robot]

In the Center of Spiral Galaxy NGC 5033

Explanation: What's happening in the center of spiral NGC 5033? Many things -- some circular, some energetic, and some not well understood. NGC 5033 is known as a Seyfert galaxy because of the great activity seen in its nucleus. Bright stars, dark dust, and interstellar gas all swirl quickly around a galactic center that appears slightly offset from a supermassive black hole. This offset is thought to be the result of NGC 5033 merging with another galaxy sometime in the past billion years. The featured image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2005. NGC 5033 spans about 100,000 light years and is so far away that we see it only as it existed about 40 million years ago.

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[starsurfer]

Yay Judy got an APOD!!

[heehaw]

Galaxies are quite something! A black hole in the middle! Who'd'a thunkit!

[bls0326]

Sure looks like a galaxy going down the drain!

[captainwiggins48]

Are there multiple nuclei? Looks like more than one.

[geckzilla]

Are there multiple nuclei? Looks like more than one.

Only one. It's difficult to see unless we adjust the brightness to make it easier to examine the nucleus. Once we do that it's very clear.

[neufer]

Are there multiple nuclei? Looks like more than one.

• Only one.

It's difficult to see unless we adjust the brightness to make it easier to examine the nucleus.

• Unfortunately, though,
  NGC 5033's nucleus is displaced from its kinematic center such that it "teeters crazily".

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

<<Integral field spectroscopic observations of the center of NGC 5033 indicate that the Seyfert nucleus is not located at the kinematic center of the galaxy (the point around which the stars in the galaxies rotate). This has been interpreted as evidence that this galaxy has undergone a merger. The displacement of the Seyfert nucleus from the kinematic center may destabilize the rotation of gas in the center of the galaxy, which could cause gas to fall into the Seyfert nucleus. The gas would be compressed by the enormous gravitational forces in the center of the Seyfert nucleus and become hot, thus making the nucleus appear bright or "active".>>

[Ann]

Are there multiple nuclei? Looks like more than one.

Only one. It's difficult to see unless we adjust the brightness to make it easier to examine the nucleus. Once we do that it's very clear.

Geck, thanks for that F814W exposure. I find it more revealing than the APOD itself, and in any case, it is a great complement to the APOD. It helps me, at least, to understand the galaxy better.

Ann

[Boomer12k]

40 million years ago.... how many Supernova, and Planetary Nebula have come and gone in that time?

My floor is dusty and dirty enough with all the wood I have brought in for the Wood Stove... sigh....
:---[===] *

[alter-ego]

40 million years ago.... how many Supernova, and Planetary Nebula have come and gone in that time?

Well, for what it's worth, involved rate calculations were made in this 2010 paper using the Lick
Observatory Supernova Search (LOSS). The raw numbers were 2.3 million SN observations over 11 years of data consisting of 14,882 galaxies within 200Mpc. The simplest analysis A simple average yields an SN observation period of ~9 days.

The formal analysis entailed galaxy types, SN types, galaxy inclination angle, color, luminosity normalization and more. Also some unexpected cosmological evolution effects were seen within the 200 MPC distance range which added further binning for their analyses.

For all the galaxies, a total of 1036 SNe were counted (Type Ia, Type 1bc and Type II).
The graph shows the distribution of the SNe over distance.

In any case, over 40 million years there's a heck of a lot supernovae that occurred, certainly likely in the billions just within 200 Mpc!

Edit: I woke up this morning and out of the blue realized the numbers and my interpretation of the graph did not make sense, and I'm correcting that. These numbers are now reasonable - I fell into the classic case of not seeing the forest for the trees

[Earthandsky]

Amazing. These photos are beginning to show results of the money spent. What lies ahead!

[neufer]

40 million years ago....

how many Supernova, and Planetary Nebula have come and gone in that time?

• Julius Caesar Act III, scene I

CASSIUS (Junius Brutus Booth): How many ages hence

• Shall this our lofty scene be acted over
  In states unborn and accents yet unknown!

BRUTUS (Edwin Booth): How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport,

• That now on Pompey's basis lies along
  No worthier than the dust!

CASSIUS (Junius Brutus Booth): So oft as that shall be,

• So often shall the knot of us be call'd
  The men that gave their country liberty.

Was the Bard Behind It?
Old light on the Lincoln assassination
by John F. Andrews, _The Atlantic_ October 1990 Issue

<<The man who fired the most notorious shot in the [Civil War] struggle bore the name of an 18th-century British radical, John Wilkes, who had supported the secessionist rebellion that established a new nation on these shores. There can be little doubt that John Wilkes Booth looked to his contentious predecessor for inspiration during the Confederacy’s effort to sever unwanted political bonds. But Booth responded to even deeper stirrings, with a more classical source. His father, the eminent Junius Brutus Booth, had been given a name that identified him with both the legendary founder of the Roman Republic (Lucius Junius Brutus) and the descendant who fought to preserve that republic half a millennium later (Marcus Junius Brutus). The elder Booth in turn had bestowed the same appellation on the oldest of his American-born sons, three of whom were destined to follow him into the theater.

[In November of 1864] John Wilkes Booth (as Mark Antony) spoke the eulogy for Brutus at the end of Shakespeare's Roman tragedy. The occasion was a benefit in which he and his brothers performed Julius Caesar to raise funds for a Central Park statue to commemorate the three-hundredth anniversary of the playwright’s birth. The production took place in New York’s Winter Garden Theatre, and it was attended by an enthusiastic audience of more than 2,000. Junius Brutus Booth the younger portrayed Cassius. Edwin played Brutus.

Subsequent developments would suggest that the youngest of these actors was in the wrong part for an evening that one observer later described as “too strikingly historic to be soon forgotten.” But it may have occurred to him even then that he was in the right play. And how carefully he must have listened as he heard his oldest brother describe the timelessness of a scene that was soon to be remounted in another lofty setting, not far from the White House.

Other members of the Booth family were strong supporters of the Union. In fact, Edwin Booth had saved Robert Todd Lincoln from a near-fatal accident, when the President’s son slipped between a departing train and a railway platform in Jersey City. His alertness earned Edwin a letter of gratitude from General Ulysses S. Grant and solidified the warm regard of the President, who saw him perform several times and who counted himself among the actor’s most ardent admirers.>>