Hanny's Voorwerp

Hanny 's Voorwerp ( Hanny's Object), SDSS J094103.80 344334.2 catalog designation, is an astronomical object which was at the time of his discovery of an unknown nature. It was discovered in 2007 by the Dutch teacher Hanny van Arkel, while she participated as an amateur astronomical in the project Galaxy Zoo. On recordings it shows up as a bright blob near the spiral galaxy IC 2497 in the constellation Little Lion.

Description

First, it was discovered in the structure of any stars. An image of the object appeared on the website Astronomy Picture of the Day with data that have been made by Dan Smith (Liverpool John Moores University ), Peter Herbert and Chris Lintott ( University of Hertfordshire ) on the 2.5-meter Isaac Newton Telescope. Hanny 's Voorwerp is unusually green for an astronomical object and has a few lines in the emission spectrum. It is located at a distance of 650 million light years.

In a new picture from the Hubble telescope, a star forming region in the quasar 2497 IC side facing could be discovered. The stars are formed in a small area by the collision with a gas stream that is thrown from the active center of IC 2497 in the direction of Hanny's Voorwerp. The glow of Hanny's Voorwerp can be explained by earlier active phases of IC 2497. Here, a black hole has emitted large amounts of light through accretion and thus Hanny's Voorwerp stimulated to emit light. In the now visible lights is an echo of some 100,000 years earlier event. The greenish color is due to glowing oxygen. Hanny's Voorwerp is part of a larger gas structure with an area of ​​300,000 light-years of IC 2497 around.

The electromagnetic spectrum shows that the object contains hot, highly ionized gas.

Research

Currently, the object and the neighboring galaxy are the subject of active astrophysical research. Observations of IC 2497 with the XMM -Newton and Suzaku space telescope to explore the supermassive black hole were approved.