IC 1101

IC 1101 is a supergiant elliptical galaxy at the center of the Abell 2029 galaxy cluster and is one of the largest known galaxies. Its halo extends about 600 kiloparsecs (2 million light-years) from its core, and it has a mass of about 100 trillion stars. The galaxy is located 320 megaparsecs (1.04 billion light-years) from Earth. The galaxy was discovered on 19 June 1790, by the British astronomer Frederick William Herschel I.[5]

IC 1101
June 1995 image of IC 1101 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
ConstellationVirgo
Right ascension15h 10m 56.1s[1]
Declination+05° 44′ 41″[1]
Redshift0.0777[2]
Helio radial velocity23,368 ± 26 km/s (14,520 ± 16 mi/s)[1]
Galactocentric velocity23,395 ± 26 km/s (14,537 ± 16 mi/s)[1]
Distance1.045 ± 0.073 billion ly (320.4 ± 22.4 Mpc)h−1
0.73[1]
Group or clusterAbell 2029
Apparent magnitude (V)14.73[1]
Characteristics
TypeE/S0[3]
Number of stars100 trillion (1014)
Size210 ± 39 thousand ly (64 ± 12 kpc) effective radius[4]
Apparent size (V)1'.2 × 0'.6[1]
Other designations
UGC 9752,[1] PGC 54167,[1] A2029-BCG[1]

Characteristics

The galaxy is classified as a supergiant elliptical (E) to lenticular (S0)[3] and is the brightest galaxy in A2029 (hence its other designation A2029-BCG; BCG meaning brightest cluster galaxy).[6][7] The galaxy's morphological type is debated due to it possibly being shaped like a flat disc but only visible from Earth at its broadest dimensions. However, most lenticulars have sizes ranging from 15 to 37 kpc (50 to 120 thousand ly).[8]

IC 1101 is among the largest known galaxies, but there is debate in the astronomical literature about how to define the size of such a galaxy. Photographic plates of blue light from the galaxy (sampling stars excluding the diffuse halo) yield an effective radius (the radius within which half the light is emitted) of 65 ± 12 kpc (212 ± 39 thousand ly).[4] The galaxy has a very large halo of much lower intensity "diffuse light" extending to a radius of 600 kpc (2 million ly).[9] The authors of the study identifying the halo conclude that IC 1101 is "possibly one of the largest and most luminous galaxies in the universe".[9]

Like most large galaxies, IC 1101 is populated by a number of metal-rich stars, some of which are seven billion years older than the Sun, making it appear golden yellow in color. It has a bright radio source at the center, which is likely associated with an ultramassive black hole in the mass range of 40–100 billion M☉, one of the largest known black holes in the universe.[10][11]

See also

References
  1. "NED results for object IC 1101". NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database. Retrieved 11 November 2006.
  2. Hoessel, J.; Gunn, J.; Thuan, T. (October 1980). "The photometric properties of brightest cluster galaxies. I - Absolute magnitudes in 116 nearby Abell clusters". The Astrophysical Journal. 241: 486–492. Bibcode:1980ApJ...241..486H. doi:10.1086/158363.
  3. "IC 1101". SIMBAD. Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  4. Fisher, David; Illingworth, Garth; Franx, Marijn (January 1995). "Kinematics of 13 brightest cluster galaxies". The Astrophysical Journal. 438 (2): 539–562. Bibcode:1995ApJ...438..539F. doi:10.1086/175100.
  5. "William Herschel's astronomical discoveries". MacTutor. University of St Andrews, Scotland. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
  6. Lewis, Aaron D.; Buote, David A.; Stocke, John T. (March 2003). "Chandra Observations of A2029: The Dark Matter Profile Down to below 0.01rvir in an Unusually Relaxed Cluster". The Astrophysical Journal. 586 (1): 135–142. arXiv:astro-ph/0209205. Bibcode:2003ApJ...586..135L. doi:10.1086/367556. S2CID 119439086.
  7. Uson, Juan M.; Boughn, Stephen P.; Kuhn, Jeffrey R. (October 1990). "The central galaxy in Abell 2029 - an old supergiant". Science. 250 (4980): 539–540. Bibcode:1990Sci...250..539U. doi:10.1126/science.250.4980.539. PMID 17751483. S2CID 23362384.
  8. Seligman, Courtney. "NGC Objects: NGC 50 - 99". Cseligman.com. Celestial Atlas. Retrieved 14 April 2015.
  9. Uson, Juan M.; Boughn, Stephen P.; Kuhn, Jeffrey R. (March 1991). "Diffuse light in dense clusters of galaxies. I. R-band observations of Abell 2029". The Astrophysical Journal. 369: 46–53. Bibcode:1991ApJ...369...46U. doi:10.1086/169737.
  10. Dullo, Bililign T.; Graham, Alister W.; Knapen, Johan H. (October 2017). "A remarkably large depleted core in the Abell 2029 BCG IC 1101". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 471 (2): 2321–2333. arXiv:1707.02277. Bibcode:2017MNRAS.471.2321D. doi:10.1093/mnras/stx1635. S2CID 119000593.
  11. Brockamp, M.; Baumgardt, H.; Britzen, S.; Zensus, A. (January 2016). "Unveiling Gargantua: A new search strategy for the most massive central cluster black holes". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 585. A153. arXiv:1509.04782. Bibcode:2016A&A...585A.153B. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201526873. S2CID 54641547.

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