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Centaurus A or NGC 5128 is a prominent galaxy in the constellation of Centaurus. It was discovered in 1826 by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop from his home in Parramatta, in New South Wales, Australia. There is considerable debate in the literature regarding the galaxy's fundamental properties such as its Hubble type (lenticular galaxy or a giant elliptical galaxy)〔 and distance (10–16 million light-years).〔〔〔〔〔 NGC 5128 is one of the closest radio galaxies to Earth, so its active galactic nucleus has been extensively studied by professional astronomers. The galaxy is also the fifth brightest in the sky,〔 making it an ideal amateur astronomy target, although the galaxy is only visible from low northern latitudes and the southern hemisphere. The center of the galaxy contains a supermassive black hole with a mass equivalent to 55 million solar masses,〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/radio-particle-jets.html )〕 which ejects a relativistic jet that is responsible for emissions in the X-ray and radio wavelengths. By taking radio observations of the jet separated by a decade, astronomers have determined that the inner parts of the jet are moving at about one half of the speed of light. X-rays are produced farther out as the jet collides with surrounding gases resulting in the creation of highly energetic particles. The radio jets of Centaurus A are over a million light years long. Like other starburst galaxies, a collision is suspected to be responsible for the intense burst of star formation. Models have suggested that Centaurus A was a large elliptical galaxy which collided and merged with a smaller spiral galaxy. ==Morphology== Centaurus A may be described as having a peculiar morphology. As seen from Earth, the galaxy looks like a lenticular or elliptical galaxy with a superimposed dust lane. The peculiarity of this galaxy was first identified in 1847 by John Herschel, and the galaxy was included in Halton Arp's ''Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies'' (published in 1966) as one of the best examples of a "disturbed" galaxy with dust absorption. The galaxy's strange morphology is generally recognized as the result of a merger between two smaller galaxies. The bulge of this galaxy is composed mainly of evolved red stars.〔 The dusty disk, however, has been the site of more recent star formation;〔 over 100 star formation regions have been identified in the disk. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Centaurus A」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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