Charles Messier never included the galaxy in his list, but it was depicted by him, together with
M32, on his drawing of "Nébuleuse D'Andromède", later known as the Andromeda Galaxy. A label of the drawing indicates that Messier first saw the object in 1773.[a][10] M110 was independently discovered by
Caroline Herschel on August 27, 1783; her brother
William Herschel described her discovery in 1785.[b][10][11] The suggestion to assign the galaxy a Messier number was made by Kenneth Glyn Jones in 1967,[12] making it the last member of the
Messier List.
Properties
This galaxy has a
morphological classification of pec dE5, indicating a dwarf elliptical galaxy with a
flattening of 50%. It is designated peculiar (pec) due to patches of dust and young blue stars near its center.[13] This is unusual for dwarf elliptical galaxies in general,[9] and the reason is unclear.[13] Unlike M32, M110 lacks evidence for a
supermassive black hole at its center.[14]
The interstellar dust in M110 has a mass of (1.1–1.8)×104M☉ with a temperature of 18–22
K, and the interstellar gas has (4–7)×106M☉. The inner region has sweeping deficiencies in its
interstellar medium IM, most likely expelled by
supernova explosions. Tidal interactions with M31 may have stripped away a significant fraction of the expelled gas and dust, leaving the galaxy as a whole, as it presents, deficient in its IM density.[15]
Novae have been detected in this galaxy, including one discovered in 1999,[16] and another in 2002. The latter, designated EQ J004015.8+414420, had also been captured in images taken by the
Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) that October.[17]
Local context
About half of the
Andromeda's satellite galaxies are orbiting it along a highly flattened plane, with 14 out of 16 following the same sense of rotation. One theory proposes that these 16 once belonged to a subhalo surrounding M110, then the group was broken up by
tidal forces during a close encounter with Andromeda.[18]
^"Messier 110". SEDS Messier Catalog. Archived from
the original on 16 June 2023. Retrieved 30 April 2022.
^Angus, Garry W.; Coppin, Paul; Gentile, Gianfranco; Diaferio, Antonaldo (1 November 2016). "The potential role of NGC 205 in generating Andromeda's vast thin corotating plane of satellite galaxies". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 462 (3): 3221–3242.
arXiv:1608.03763.
Bibcode:
2016MNRAS.462.3221A.
doi:
10.1093/mnras/stw1822.
^Herschel, William (1785).
"On the construction of the heavens". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. 75: 213–266. From p. 262: "There is a very considerable, broad, pretty faint, small nebula near it [the Andromeda galaxy, M31]; my Sister [Caroline] discovered it August 27, 1783, with a Newtonian 2-feet sweeper. It shews the same faint colour with the great one, and is, no doubt, in the neighborhood of it. It is not [M32] … ; but this is about two-thirds of a degree north preceding it, in a line parallel to β [Beta] and ν [Nu] Andromedae."
^
abFord, Holland C.; et al. (July 1973), "Planetary Nebulae in Local-Group Galaxies. I. Identifications in NGC 185, NGC 205, and NGC 221", Astrophysical Journal, 183: L73,
Bibcode:
1973ApJ...183L..73F,
doi:
10.1086/181255
^Angus, Garry W.; Coppin, Paul; Gentile, Gianfranco; Diaferio, Antonaldo (November 2016). "The potential role of NGC 205 in generating Andromeda's vast thin corotating plane of satellite galaxies". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 462 (3): 3221–3242.
arXiv:1608.03763.
Bibcode:
2016MNRAS.462.3221A.
doi:
10.1093/mnras/stw1822.
S2CID56154943.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Messier 110.