Galaxies like Russian dolls

12/11/2018
Jairo Méndez Abreu, Severo Ochoa postdoctoral fellow, and Adriana de Lorenzo-Cáceres, researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), have discovered a peanut-shaped structure in the inner bar of a double-barred galaxy close to the Milky Way. Structures of this type, in the form of a Russian doll and previously detected only in outer, or single, bars are useful tracers of the evolution of the galaxies. This structure, in the form of a Russian doll composed of two bars is basic for understanding the internal evolution of the galaxies, and how they fuel the supermassive black holes at their centres. This work has been carried out within the international TIMER project. >> Read more