November 2, 2024

Astrophysical Anomalies: The Curious Case of the Spider Galaxy

Hubble Space Telescope picture of UGC 5829, also called the Spider Galaxy. It is an irregular galaxy recognized for its spider-like arms, situated 30 million light-years away. Credit: ESA/Hubble & & NASA, R. Tully, M. MessaThe Spider Galaxy, situated 30 million light-years away, is cataloged under numerous names, identifying it from the likewise nicknamed but far-off Spiderweb Galaxy.This gauzy-looking heavenly body is UGC 5829, an irregular galaxy that lies about 30 million light-years away. Despite there not being many observations of this relatively faint galaxy, it has the difference of having a descriptive soubriquet: the Spider Galaxy.Perhaps the distorted galactic arms with their glowing, star-forming tips bring to mind the clawed legs of an arachnid. Rather confusingly, there is another, very likewise nicknamed however otherwise entirely unique, galaxy referred to as the Spiderweb Galaxy.This galaxy has actually also been more extensively imaged (notably by Hubble), despite the fact that it lies about 300 times even more from Earth than the Spider Galaxy does.Cataloging GalaxiesFortunately, correct galaxy identification does not depend upon casual given names. Rather, known galaxies are recorded in a minimum of one brochure– and typically in numerous– such as the Uppsala General Catalogue of Galaxies, which gives the Spider Galaxy its more formal title of UGC 5829. This same galaxy also has numerous different designations in various other brochures: it is, for example, LEDA 31923 in the Lyon-Meudon Extragalactic Database; MCG +06 -24 -006 in the Morphological Catalogue of Galaxies; and SDSS J104242.78 +342657.3 in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Catalogue. The Spiderweb Galaxy isnt recorded in all of the exact same brochures– each is always restricted in scope– however it is consisted of in the LEDA catalog as LEDA 2826829. It is obviously easier to not conflate the dull but distinct names LEDA 31923 and LEDA 2826829, than the fun but quickly puzzled Spider and Spiderweb!