Russian astronomers have been exploring a nearby lenticular galaxy known as NGC 4324. They have discovered
Previous observations of NGC 4324 showed thatthere is a huge amount of gas in it. Scientists also discovered a bright blue star-forming ring embedded in a large-scale stellar disk typical of lenticular galaxies.
Composite color image of NGC 4324 from the SDSS survey, DR9.
Image Credit & Copyright: Ahn et al., 2012
A group of astronomers from the Moscow StateUniversity named after M.V. Lomonosova, under the leadership of Irina Proshina, studied the pattern of star formation in the ring of NGC 4324. To do this, they used the 2.5-meter telescope of the Caucasus Mountain Observatory. The study was supplemented with archival images from the SDSS, GALEX and WISE surveys.
In total, during the study they found18 young star-forming complexes (clumps). The average size of each is about 1,600 light years. It turned out that the stellar mass of the largest clumps reaches 10 million Suns.
The results show that outbreaksstar formation in these clusters began quite recently—within 10 million years. Astronomers explained that the stars that appeared during the previous burst of star formation (about 200 million years ago) now do not affect their luminosity in the far ultraviolet. They have already become supernovae and the peak of their luminosity has shifted to the near ultraviolet region.
Galaxy NGC 4324 (also known as UGC07451), located approximately 85 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo, is an early-type lenticular galaxy approximately 66,000 light-years in size. Its stellar mass is about 56 billion Suns, and its total mass is at least 10 times that.
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