Irregular Galaxies
Click icon to view the only irregular galaxy in Messier’s catalog,
M82.
The icon shows Large Magellanic Cloud,
a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way and a member of
the Local Group.
Irregular galaxies are those which do not match the standard Hubble scheme
of elliptical, spiral and lenticular galaxies.
There’s only one irregular galaxy in Messier’s catalog:
M82, and this one is a distorted disk galaxy.
The distortion is due to gravitational interaction with its larger and
more massive neighbor M81.
Another, very similar example is at least mentioned in Messier’s catalog,
though it did not get a number on its own:
NGC 5195, the companion of the Whirlpool
galaxy M51, which had been discovered by Pierre
Mechain. The only further irregular galaxies
known to 1782 are the
Large and the
Small Magellanic Cloud; these are probably
miniature disk galaxies in mutual gravitational interaction, and in interaction
with out Milky Way.
- Look at Irregular Galaxies in Messier’s Catalog
- Also look at our collection of some
significant irregular and peculiar galaxies not in Messier’s catalog
Last Modification: 25 Jan 1998, 16:10 MET