Institutional development · Research, innovation and assessment · Chile
Doctoral researcher leads study proposing three-process origin for dwarf galaxy NGC 1427A
A study led by a doctoral student at the Institute of Astrophysics, with researchers from the ANID-funded CATA centre, reconstructs the recent history of a dwarf galaxy that has puzzled astronomers for over 30 years.
Why it matters: Researchers at the Institute of Astrophysics and CATA are behind a proposed explanation for features of NGC 1427A that earlier hypotheses had not fully accounted for.
According to PUC Chile, the dwarf galaxy NGC 1427A, located in the Fornax cluster about 55 million light years from Earth, has an irregular shape, long tails of material and off-centre star-forming regions that no hypothesis had fully explained for more than three decades.
The study was led by Juan Pablo Carvajal, a doctoral student at the Institute of Astrophysics and a researcher attached to CATA (Centro de Astrofísica y Tecnologías Afines, or Centre for Astrophysics and Associated Technologies), a project funded by ANID.
Co-authors include Thomas Puzia, an academic at the same institute and principal investigator of CATA, along with other CATA researchers.
The university says the work reconstructs the galaxy's recent history and proposes an explanation combining three processes occurring on different timescales.
Editor’s view
Scott James, Research and Innovation Editor
For the Institute of Astrophysics and CATA, the published study puts a doctoral researcher at the head of a proposed answer to a question about NGC 1427A that, according to the university, had resisted explanation for over 30 years.
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