No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Efficient Star-Formation in the Tidal Arms of the Stephan's Quintet Group of Galaxies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 May 2016
Extract
NGC 7318B in Stephan's Quintet has two optical arms (toward N and S) emanating from the eastern part of the main body. Since these arms are similar morphologically to the tidal tails of merging galaxies such as NGC 4038/9, it is considered that NGC 7318B itself is a major merger with a retrograde orbit. In order to study the emission-line activity in the tidal arms of NGC 7318B, we took CCD narrow-band (Hα ON and OFF) images and then found a large-scale arc in Hα emission which traces closely the arms. This Hα arc resembles both the radio and the soft X-ray arcs morphologically (van der Hulst & Rots 1981; Pietsch et al. 1997), suggesting that a single physical mechanism is responsible for all of these kinds of emission. Our optical spectroscopic observations of the shell-like feature at the southern tip of the arc reveal both broad Hα emission and stronger-than-normal [NII] and [SII] emission lines, which are typical of supernova remnants (SNRs). The required number of SNRs is estimated to be as much as ~ 106.
- Type
- Groups & Clusters
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Kluwer 1999