Galaxy Zoo Talk

2 or 3 merging?

  • Benescu by Benescu

    Hey guys. I've came upon this and I'm a bit confused. Image shows what seem to be 3 galaxy interacting. But after checking SDSS spectrum, I came up with 2 spectrum, instead of 3. Also, they are similar.

    Central galaxy spectrum

    Bottom galaxy (6'oclock) same as central one

    Galaxy on the right (2'oclock)

    For further analysis: http://skyserver.sdss.org/dr12/en/tools/chart/navi.aspx?ra=335.99286&dec=-0.82271

    Either we have a big central galaxy with 2 cores that interact with the 2'oclock one (due to the same spectrum for the central one), or we have 3 galaxies merging but we don't have the spectrum for 6'oclock one. Red shift is almost the same, 0.14824 - central and 0.15098 - 2'oclock one, this indicates that they interact. Also, we have obvious tidal debris at 2'oclock. Central one doesn't present tidal debris maybe due to it's side view. Also, I can be horribly wrong.

    Need a real scientist here to measure distances between them and help me/us solve the mystery.

    Posted