NGC 7793
Galaxy in the constellation Sculptor
NGC 7793 is a flocculent spiral galaxy in the southern constellation of Sculptor. It was discovered on July 14, 1826, by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop. The galaxy is located at a distance of 12.2 million light years and is receding with a heliocentric radial velocity of 227 km/s. NGC 7793 is one of the five brightest galaxies within the Sculptor Group.
The morphological class of NGC 7793 is SA(s)d, indicating it is unbarred spiral galaxy (SA) with no inner ring structure (s) and the arms are loosely wound and disorganized (d). It is flocculent in appearance with a very small bulge and a star cluster at the nucleus. The galactic disk is inclined at an angle of 53.7° to the line of sight from the Earth. The visible profile is elliptical in form with an angular size of 9.3′ × 6.3′ and a major axis aligned along a position angle of 99.3°. There are two nearby dwarf galaxy companions.
NGC 7793 hosts the ultra-luminous X-ray pulsar (ULXP) referred to as NGC 7793 P13 (previously believed to harbor a black hole), which consists of a 0.42-second pulsar in a 64-day orbit with a 18-23 solar mass B9Ia companion star.
01Supernova
One supernova has been observed in NGC 7793. SN 2008bk (Type II-P, mag. 12.6) was discovered by Berto Monard (bio-it) on March 25, 2008. It reached apparent magnitude 12.5, making it the second-brightest supernova of 2008. The progenitor of this supernova was a red supergiant, observed only 547 days prior to the explosion.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “NGC 7793”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Jets and explosions in NGC 7793 (15301077796).jpg by Hubble ESA, CC BY 2.0
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