ARG00034vg SDSS J145127.93+091919.2 UGC 9561 IS THAT GALAXY TRAIL REAL?
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by 1001G
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by JeanTate in response to 1001G's comment.
Oh wow! That is gorgeous!! 😃
Yes, it's real. It's a 'tidal tail', produced when a spiral galaxy has a close encounter with another galaxy (of ~comparable or greater mass). If I am not mistaken, these sorts of tails were predicted in (very simple) theoretical models by the Toomre brothers, back in, what, the 1970s?
You can also see a counter-tail to the N, possibly connecting with the 'perturber' galaxy, which is - or was - also a spiral, and likely the more massive of the pair (you can't be 100% sure there's a connection rather than tails which sweep in front or behind):
The bigger galaxy is UGC 09461, and the merger/interacting pair is Arp 173 (Halton Arp produced a wonderful "Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies" in 1966, well before SDSS; many - perhaps most - of the galaxies in it are "mergers").
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by ivywong scientist, admin
In case you're interested, feel free to crash your own galaxies here: http://burro.cwru.edu/JavaLab/GalCrashWeb/
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by DZM Zooniverse Team
A very cool find indeed. Almost looks like something off of Plankton Portal! Great galaxy. 😃
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by 1001G
Just a guess from SIMBAD & NED. SDSS J145127.93+091919.2 UGC 9561 The TRAIL GALAXY SIMBAD V km/s 8740 or NED V km/s 8871 Z 0.2959 went S past
SDSS J145129.30+092005.8 NVSS J145129+092005 LARGE GALAXY SIMBAD V km/s8670 Z 0.2935.Posted