The loneliest firework display
Roughly 50 million light-years away lies a somewhat overlooked little galaxy named NGC 1559. Pictured here by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, this barred spiral lies in the little-observed southern constellation of Reticulum (The Reticule).
NGC 1559 has massive spiral arms chock-full of star formation, and is receding from us at a speed of about 1300 km/s. The galaxy contains the mass of around ten billion Suns — while this may sound like a lot, that is almost 100 times less massive than the Milky Way. Although NGC 1559 appears to sit near one of our nearest neighbours in the sky — the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), this is just a trick of perspective. In reality, NGC 1559 is physically nowhere near the LMC in space — in fact, it truly is a loner, lacking the company of any nearby galaxies or membership of any galaxy cluster.
Despite its lack of cosmic companions, when this lonely galaxy has a telescope pointed in its direction, it puts on quite a show! NGC 1559 has hosted a variety of spectacular exploding stars called supernovae, four of which we have observed — in 1984, 1986, 2005, and 2009 (SN 1984J, 1986L, 2005df [a Type Ia], and 2009ib [a Type II-P, with an unusually long plateau]).
NGC 1559 may be alone in space, but we are watching and admiring from far away.
Credit:ESA/Hubble & NASA
About the Image
Id: | potw1806a |
Type: | Observation |
Release date: | 5 February 2018, 06:00 |
Size: | 3521 x 3449 px |
About the Object
Name: | NGC 1559 |
Type: | Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral Local Universe : Galaxy : Activity : AGN : Seyfert |
Distance: | 50 million light years |
Constellation: | Reticulum |
Category: | Galaxies |
Coordinates
Position (RA): | 4 17 37.33 |
Position (Dec): | -62° 47' 4.65" |
Field of view: | 2.33 x 2.28 arcminutes |
Orientation: | North is 72.6° left of vertical |
Colours & filters
Band | Wavelength | Telescope |
---|---|---|
Optical U | 336 nm |
Hubble Space Telescope
WFC3 |
Optical B | 438 nm |
Hubble Space Telescope
WFC3 |
Optical V | 606 nm |
Hubble Space Telescope
WFC3 |
Optical I | 814 nm |
Hubble Space Telescope
WFC3 |