Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2012-03-16
(2012) ApJ, 750, 121
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
To appear in ApJ. Six pages including references and figures
Scientific paper
We report the discovery of an interesting and rare, rectangular-shaped galaxy. At a distance of 21 Mpc, the dwarf galaxy LEDA 074886 has an absolute R-band magnitude of -17.3 mag. Adding to this galaxy's intrigue is the presence of an embedded, edge-on stellar disk (of extent 2R_{e,disk} = 12 arcsec = 1.2 kpc) for which Forbes et al. reported V_rot/sigma ~ 1.4. We speculate that this galaxy may be the remnant of two (nearly edge-one) merged disk galaxies in which the initial gas was driven inward and subsequently formed the inner disk, while the stars at larger radii effectively experienced a dissipationless merger event resulting in this `emerald cut galaxy' having very boxy isophotes with a_4/a = -0.05 to -0.08 from 3 to 5 kpc. This galaxy suggests that knowledge from simulations of both `wet' and `dry' galaxy mergers may need to be combined to properly understand the various paths that galaxy evolution can take, with a particular relevance to blue elliptical galaxies.
Forbes Duncan A.
Graham Alister W.
Janz Joachim
Lisker Thorsten
Moore Ben
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