APOD: 2023 January 26 - Active Galaxy NGC 1275

Good morning, Rallypoint, and welcome to the January 26th edition of Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD): "Active Galaxy NGC 1275." An 'active galaxy' is one that has much-higher-than-normal luminosity over at least one portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. In the case of NGC 1275, we see that excessive luminosity over the radio (greater than 10 meter) and x-ray (less than 1 nanometer) wavelengths. Why might that be? One possible reason might be that when we look at NGC 1275 (aka Perseus A), we are actually looking at two galaxies.

Both are in our line of sight some 230 million light years from Earth. The first galaxy (the one closest to us) lies some 200,000 light years in front of the other. Data suggests it is moving towards the second at a rate of 3000 km/sec. The second (central?) galaxy is behind the red (hydrogen) filaments you see originating from the galactic center. I'll post a follow-on image in a separate comment that highlights the filaments. Each ribbon is estimated to contain 1 million solar masses. Collectively, NGC 1275 is estimated to contain 12-13 billion solar masses.