halo

Not sure what is the "additional halo": overlap, other object in closer to us, or merging?

Posted February 20, 2016 5:42 PM

by KWillett scientist, admin, translator

Interesting - I'm guessing you're talking about the bright extension to the middle-right of the main galaxy (which looks like an edge-on spiral). I'm actually not sure what that is. Possible candidates would be:

foreground star in the Milky Way
a small spheroidal galaxy being accreted by the main galaxy
an unusually asymmetric bulge
superstar cluster within the galaxy
separate foreground/background galaxy along the same line of sight

The SDSS spectra covers both the main galaxy and that little extension in the same observation, so there aren't any separate data. I looked at the spectrum - if they were separate objects, we might expect to see either lines that haven't been automatically identified or unusually broad/double-peaked lines from different objects. I didn't see any of those on a quick inspection, but it would be worth a closer look.

Have you seen any other images that look like this?

Posted February 20, 2016 8:17 PM

by Budgieye moderator

Here is a galaxy with a large "halo"

M82 look-alike? with superwind http://talk.galaxyzoo.org/#/boards/BGZ0000004/discussions/DGZ0001ty5

Posted February 21, 2016 12:00 AM

by tina_pixie_

This is the only one I have seen so far.

Seems very peculiar.

Posted February 21, 2016 1:02 AM