Year: 2007
Type: article
Abstract: Since its discovery, Malin 1 has been considered the prototype and most extreme example of the class of giant low surface brightness disk galaxies. Examination of an archival Hubble Space Telescope I -band image reveals that Malin 1 contains a normal stellar disk that was not previously recognized, having a central I -band surface brightness of μ 0 = 20.1 mag arcsec -2 and a scale length of 4.8 kpc. Out to a radius of ∼10 kpc, the structure of Malin 1 is that of a typical SB0/a galaxy. The remarkably extended, faint outer structure detected out to r ≈ 100 kpc appears to be a photometrically distinct component and not a simple extension of the inner disk. In terms of its disk scale length and central surface brightness, Malin 1 was originally found to be a very remote outlier relative to all other known disk galaxies. The presence of a disk of normal size and surface brightness in Malin 1 suggests that such extreme outliers in disk properties probably do not exist, but underscores the importance of the extended outer disk regions for a full understanding of the structure and formation of spiral galaxies.
Source: The Astronomical Journal
DOI: 10.1086/511180
Author: Aaron J. Barth
Institution: University of California, Irvine
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W1971643376