Fish
Fish are gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits. They form a sister group to the tunicates. Included in this definition are the living hagfish and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Tetrapods emerged within lobe-finned fishes, so cladistically they are fish as well. However, traditionally fish are rendered paraphyletic by excluding the tetrapods; because in this manner the term "fish" is defined negatively as a paraphyletic group, it is not considered a formal taxonomic grouping in systematic biology, unless it is used in the cladistic sense, including tetrapods. The traditional term pisces is considered a typological, but not a phylogenetic classification; the earliest organisms that can be classified as fish were soft-bodied chordates that first appeared during the Cambrian period. Although they lacked a true spine, they possessed notochords which allowed them to be more agile than their invertebrate counterparts. Fish would continue to evolve through the Paleozoic era.
Many fish of the Paleozoic developed external armor. The first fish with jaws appeared in the Silurian period, after which many became formidable marine predators rather than just the prey of arthropods. Most fish are ectothermic, allowing their body temperatures to vary as ambient temperatures change, though some of the large active swimmers like white shark and tuna can hold a higher core temperature. Fish can communicate in their underwater environments through the use of acoustic communication. Acoustic communication in fish involves the transmission of acoustic signals from one individual of a species to another; the production of sounds as a means of communication among fish is most used in the context of feeding, aggression or courtship behaviour. The sounds emitted by fish can vary depending on the stimulus involved, they can produce either stridulatory sounds by moving components of the skeletal system, or can produce non-stridulatory sounds by manipulating specialized organs such as the swimbladder.
Fish are abundant in most bodies of water. They can be found in nearly all aquatic environments, from high mountain streams to the abyssal and hadal depths of the deepest oceans, although no species has yet been documented in the deepest 25% of the ocean. With 33,600 described species, fish exhibit greater species diversity than any other group of vertebrates. Fish are an important resource for humans worldwide as food. Commercial and subsistence fishers hunt fish in wild fisheries or farm them in ponds or in cages in the ocean, they are caught by recreational fishers, kept as pets, raised by fishkeepers, exhibited in public aquaria. Fish have had a role in culture through the ages, serving as deities, religious symbols, as the subjects of art and movies. Fish do not represent a monophyletic group, therefore the "evolution of fish" is not studied as a single event. Early fish from the fossil record are represented by a group of small, armored fish known as ostracoderms. Jawless fish lineages are extinct.
An extant clade, the lampreys may approximate ancient pre-jawed fish. The first jaws are found in Placodermi fossils; the diversity of jawed vertebrates may indicate the evolutionary advantage of a jawed mouth. It is unclear if the advantage of a hinged jaw is greater biting force, improved respiration, or a combination of factors. Fish may have evolved from a creature similar to a coral-like sea squirt, whose larvae resemble primitive fish in important ways; the first ancestors of fish may have kept the larval form into adulthood, although the reverse is the case. Fish are a paraphyletic group: that is, any clade containing all fish contains the tetrapods, which are not fish. For this reason, groups such as the "Class Pisces" seen in older reference works are no longer used in formal classifications. Traditional classification divides fish into three extant classes, with extinct forms sometimes classified within the tree, sometimes as their own classes: Class Agnatha Subclass Cyclostomata Subclass Ostracodermi † Class Chondrichthyes Subclass Elasmobranchii Subclass Holocephali Class Placodermi † Class Acanthodii † Class Osteichthyes Subclass Actinopterygii Subclass Sarcopterygii The above scheme is the one most encountered in non-specialist and general works.
Many of the above groups are paraphyletic, in that they have given rise to successive groups: Agnathans are ancestral to Chondrichthyes, who again have given rise to Acanthodiians, the ancestors of Osteichthyes. With the arrival of phylogenetic nomenclature, the fishes has been split up into a more detailed scheme, with the following major groups: Class Myxini Class Pteraspidomorphi † Class Thelodonti † Class Anaspida † Class Petromyzontida or Hyperoartia Petromyzontidae Class Conodonta † Class Cephalaspidomorphi † Galeaspida † Pituriaspida † Osteostraci † Infraphylum Gnathostomata Class Placodermi † Class Chondrichthyes Class Acanthodii † Superclass Osteichthy
Messier object
The Messier objects are a set of 110 astronomical objects cataloged by the French astronomer Charles Messier in his Catalogue des Nébuleuses et des Amas d'Étoiles. Because Messier was interested in finding only comets, he created a list of non-comet objects that frustrated his hunt for them; the compilation of this list, in collaboration with his assistant Pierre Méchain, is known as the Messier catalogue. This catalogue of objects is one of the most famous lists of astronomical objects, many Messier objects are still referenced by their Messier number; the catalogue includes some astronomical objects that can be observed from Earth's Northern Hemisphere such as deep-sky objects, a characteristic which makes the Messier objects popular targets for amateur astronomers. A preliminary version first appeared in the Memoirs of the French Academy of Sciences in 1771, the last item was added in 1966 by Kenneth Glyn Jones, based on Messier's observations; the first version of Messier's catalogue contained 45 objects and was published in 1774 in the journal of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris.
In addition to his own discoveries, this version included objects observed by other astronomers, with only 17 of the 45 objects being Messier's. By 1780 the catalogue had increased to 80 objects; the final version of the catalogue containing 103 objects was published in 1781 in the Connaissance des Temps for the year 1784. However, due to what was thought for a long time to be the incorrect addition of Messier 102, the total number remained 102. Other astronomers, using side notes in Messier's texts filled out the list up to 110 objects; the catalogue consists of a diverse range of astronomical objects, ranging from star clusters and nebulae to galaxies. For example, Messier 1 is a supernova remnant, known as the Crab Nebula, the great spiral Andromeda Galaxy is M31. Many further inclusions followed in the next century when the first addition came from Nicolas Camille Flammarion in 1921, who added Messier 104 after finding Messier's side note in his 1781 edition exemplar of the catalogue. M105 to M107 were added by Helen Sawyer Hogg in 1947, M108 and M109 by Owen Gingerich in 1960, M110 by Kenneth Glyn Jones in 1967.
The first edition of 1771 covered 45 objects numbered M1 to M45. The total list published by Messier in 1781 contained 103 objects, but the list was expanded through successive additions by other astronomers, motivated by notes in Messier's and Méchain's texts indicating that at least one of them knew of the additional objects; the first such addition came from Nicolas Camille Flammarion in 1921, who added Messier 104 after finding a note Messier made in a copy of the 1781 edition of the catalog. M105 to M107 were added by Helen Sawyer Hogg in 1947, M108 and M109 by Owen Gingerich in 1960, M110 by Kenneth Glyn Jones in 1967. M102 was observed by Méchain. Méchain concluded that this object was a re-observation of M101, though some sources suggest that the object Méchain observed was the galaxy NGC 5866 and identify that as M102. Messier's final catalogue was included in the Connaissance des Temps for 1784, the French official yearly publication of astronomical ephemerides; these objects are still known by their "Messier number" from this list.
Messier did his astronomical work at the Hôtel de Cluny, in Paris, France. The list he compiled contains only objects found in the sky area he could observe: from the north celestial pole to a celestial latitude of about −35.7°. He did not observe or list objects visible only from farther south, such as the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds; the Messier catalogue comprises nearly all the most spectacular examples of the five types of deep-sky object – diffuse nebulae, planetary nebulae, open clusters, globular clusters, galaxies – visible from European latitudes. Furthermore all of the Messier objects are among the closest to Earth in their respective classes, which makes them studied with professional class instruments that today can resolve small and visually spectacular details in them. A summary of the astrophysics of each Messier object can be found in the Concise Catalog of Deep-sky Objects. Since these objects could be observed visually with the small-aperture refracting telescope used by Messier to study the sky, they are among the brightest and thus most attractive astronomical objects observable from Earth, are popular targets for visual study and astrophotography available to modern amateur astronomers using larger aperture equipment.
In early spring, astronomers sometimes gather for "Messier marathons", when all of the objects can be viewed over a single night. Lists of astronomical objects List of Messier objects Caldwell catalogue Deep-sky object Herschel 400 Catalogue New General Catalogue SEDS Messier Database Charles Messier Charles Messier's Catalog of Nebulae and Star Clusters History of the Messier Catalog Interactive Messier Catalog Greenhawk Observatory Listing of Copyright-free Images of all Messier Objects CCD Images of Messier Objects 12 Dimensional String Messier Gallery The Messier Catalogue Merrifield, Mike. "Messier Objects". Deep Sky Videos. Brady Haran. Messier Objects at Constellation Guide
Meteor shower
A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at high speeds on parallel trajectories. Most meteors are smaller than a grain of sand, so all of them disintegrate and never hit the Earth's surface. Intense or unusual meteor showers are known as meteor outbursts and meteor storms, which produce at least 1,000 meteors an hour, most notably from the Leonids; the Meteor Data Centre lists over 900 suspected meteor showers of which about 100 are well established. Several organizations point to viewing opportunities on the Internet; the first great meteor storm in the modern era was the Leonids of November 1833. One estimate is a peak rate of over one hundred thousand meteors an hour, but another, done as the storm abated, estimated in excess of two hundred thousand meteors during the 9 hours of storm, over the entire region of North America east of the Rocky Mountains.
American Denison Olmsted explained the event most accurately. After spending the last weeks of 1833 collecting information, he presented his findings in January 1834 to the American Journal of Science and Arts, published in January–April 1834, January 1836, he noted the shower was of short duration and was not seen in Europe, that the meteors radiated from a point in the constellation of Leo and he speculated the meteors had originated from a cloud of particles in space. Work continued, yet coming to understand the annual nature of showers though the occurrences of storms perplexed researchers; the actual nature of meteors was still debated during the XIX century. Meteors were conceived as an atmospheric phenomenon by many scientists until the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli ascertained the relation between meteors and comets in his work "Notes upon the astronomical theory of the falling stars". In the 1890s, Irish astronomer George Johnstone Stoney and British astronomer Arthur Matthew Weld Downing, were the first to attempt to calculate the position of the dust at Earth's orbit.
They studied the dust ejected in 1866 by comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle in advance of the anticipated Leonid shower return of 1898 and 1899. Meteor storms were anticipated, but the final calculations showed that most of the dust would be far inside of Earth's orbit; the same results were independently arrived at by Adolf Berberich of the Königliches Astronomisches Rechen Institut in Berlin, Germany. Although the absence of meteor storms that season confirmed the calculations, the advance of much better computing tools was needed to arrive at reliable predictions. In 1981 Donald K. Yeomans of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory reviewed the history of meteor showers for the Leonids and the history of the dynamic orbit of Comet Tempel-Tuttle. A graph from it was re-published in Sky and Telescope, it showed relative positions of the Earth and Tempel-Tuttle and marks where Earth encountered dense dust. This showed that the meteoroids are behind and outside the path of the comet, but paths of the Earth through the cloud of particles resulting in powerful storms were near paths of nearly no activity.
In 1985, E. D. Kondrat'eva and E. A. Reznikov of Kazan State University first identified the years when dust was released, responsible for several past Leonid meteor storms. In 1995, Peter Jenniskens predicted the 1995 Alpha Monocerotids outburst from dust trails. In anticipation of the 1999 Leonid storm, Robert H. McNaught, David Asher, Finland's Esko Lyytinen were the first to apply this method in the West. In 2006 Jenniskens published predictions for future dust trail encounters covering the next 50 years. Jérémie Vaubaillon continues to update predictions based on observations each year for the Institut de Mécanique Céleste et de Calcul des Éphémérides; because meteor shower particles are all traveling in parallel paths, at the same velocity, they will all appear to an observer below to radiate away from a single point in the sky. This radiant point is caused by the effect of perspective, similar to parallel railroad tracks converging at a single vanishing point on the horizon when viewed from the middle of the tracks.
Meteor showers are always named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. This "fixed point" moves across the sky during the night due to the Earth turning on its axis, the same reason the stars appear to march across the sky; the radiant moves from night to night against the background stars due to the Earth moving in its orbit around the sun. See IMO Meteor Shower Calendar 2017 for maps of drifting "fixed points." When the moving radiant is at the highest point it will reach in the observer's sky that night, the sun will be just clearing the eastern horizon. For this reason, the best viewing time for a meteor shower is slightly before dawn — a compromise between the maximum number of meteors available for viewing, the lightening sky which makes them harder to see. Meteor showers are named after the nearest constellation or bright star with a Greek or Roman letter assigned, close to the radiant position at the peak of the shower, whereby the grammatical declension of the Latin possessive form is replaced by "id" or "ids".
Hence, meteors radiating from near the star delta Aquarii are called delta Aquariids. The International Astronomical Union's Task Group on Meteor Shower Nomenclature and the IAU's Meteor Data Center keep track of meteor shower nomenclature and which showers are e
Exoplanet
An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first evidence of an exoplanet was not recognized as such; the first scientific detection of an exoplanet was in 1988. The first confirmed detection occurred in 1992; as of 1 April 2019, there are 4,023 confirmed planets in 3,005 systems, with 656 systems having more than one planet. There are many methods of detecting exoplanets. Transit photometry and Doppler spectroscopy have found the most, but these methods suffer from a clear observational bias favoring the detection of planets near the star. In several cases, multiple planets have been observed around a star. About 1 in 5 Sun-like stars have an "Earth-sized" planet in the habitable zone. Assuming there are 200 billion stars in the Milky Way, it can be hypothesized that there are 11 billion habitable Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way, rising to 40 billion if planets orbiting the numerous red dwarfs are included; the least massive planet known is Draugr, about twice the mass of the Moon.
The most massive planet listed on the NASA Exoplanet Archive is HR 2562 b, about 30 times the mass of Jupiter, although according to some definitions of a planet, it is too massive to be a planet and may be a brown dwarf instead. There are planets that are so near to their star that they take only a few hours to orbit and there are others so far away that they take thousands of years to orbit; some are so far out. All of the planets detected so far are within the Milky Way. Nonetheless, evidence suggests that extragalactic planets, exoplanets farther away in galaxies beyond the local Milky Way galaxy, may exist; the nearest exoplanet is Proxima Centauri b, located 4.2 light-years from Earth and orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun. The discovery of exoplanets has intensified interest in the search for extraterrestrial life. There is special interest in planets that orbit in a star's habitable zone, where it is possible for liquid water, a prerequisite for life on Earth, to exist on the surface.
The study of planetary habitability considers a wide range of other factors in determining the suitability of a planet for hosting life. Besides exoplanets, there are rogue planets, which do not orbit any star; these tend to be considered as a separate category if they are gas giants, in which case they are counted as sub-brown dwarfs, like WISE 0855−0714. The rogue planets in the Milky Way number in the billions; the convention for designating exoplanets is an extension of the system used for designating multiple-star systems as adopted by the International Astronomical Union. For exoplanets orbiting a single star, the designation is formed by taking the name or, more designation of its parent star and adding a lower case letter; the first planet discovered in a system is given the designation "b" and planets are given subsequent letters. If several planets in the same system are discovered at the same time, the closest one to the star gets the next letter, followed by the other planets in order of orbital size.
A provisional IAU-sanctioned standard exists to accommodate the designation of circumbinary planets. A limited number of exoplanets have IAU-sanctioned proper names. Other naming systems exist. For centuries scientists and science fiction writers suspected that extrasolar planets existed, but there was no way of detecting them or of knowing their frequency or how similar they might be to the planets of the Solar System. Various detection claims made in the nineteenth century were rejected by astronomers; the first evidence of an exoplanet was not recognized as such. The first suspected scientific detection of an exoplanet occurred in 1988. Shortly afterwards, the first confirmed detection came in 1992, with the discovery of several terrestrial-mass planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12; the first confirmation of an exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star was made in 1995, when a giant planet was found in a four-day orbit around the nearby star 51 Pegasi. Some exoplanets have been imaged directly by telescopes, but the vast majority have been detected through indirect methods, such as the transit method and the radial-velocity method.
In February 2018, researchers using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, combined with a planet detection technique called microlensing, found evidence of planets in a distant galaxy, stating "Some of these exoplanets are as small as the moon, while others are as massive as Jupiter. Unlike Earth, most of the exoplanets are not bound to stars, so they're wandering through space or loosely orbiting between stars. We can estimate. In the sixteenth century the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno, an early supporter of the Copernican theory that Earth and other planets orbit the Sun, put forward the view that the fixed stars are similar to the Sun and are accompanied by planets. In the eighteenth century the same possibility was mentioned by Isaac Newton in the "General Scholium" that concludes his Principia. Making a comparison to the Sun's planets, he wrote "And if the fixed stars are the centres of similar systems, they will all be constructed according to a similar design and subject to the dominion of One."In 1952, more than 40 years before the first hot Jupiter was discovere
Sagittarius (constellation)
Sagittarius is one of the constellations of the zodiac. It is one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy and remains one of the 88 modern constellations, its name is Latin for the archer, its symbol is, a stylized arrow. Sagittarius is represented as a centaur pulling back a bow, it lies between Ophiuchus to the west and Capricornus and Microscopium to the east. The center of the Milky Way lies in the westernmost part of Sagittarius; as seen from the northern hemisphere, the constellation's brighter stars form an recognizable asterism known as "the Teapot". The stars δ Sgr, ε Sgr, ζ Sgr, φ Sgr form the body of the pot; these same stars formed the bow and arrow of Sagittarius. Marking the bottom of the teapot's "handle", is the bright star Zeta Sagittarii, named Ascella, the fainter Tau Sagittarii. To complete the teapot metaphor, under good conditions, a dense area of the Milky Way can be seen rising in a north-westerly arc above the spout, like a puff of steam rising from a boiling kettle.
The constellation as a whole is depicted as having the rough appearance of a stick-figure archer drawing its bow, with the fainter stars providing the outline of the horse's body. Sagittarius famously points its arrow at the heart of Scorpius, represented by the reddish star Antares, as the two constellations race around the sky. Following the direct line formed by Delta Sagittarii and Gamma2 Sagittarii leads nearly directly to Antares. Fittingly, Gamma2 Sagittarii is Alnasl, the Arabic word for "arrowhead", Delta Sagittarii is called Kaus Media, the "center of the bow," from which the arrow protrudes. Kaus Media bisects Lambda Sagittarii and Epsilon Sagittarii, whose names Kaus Borealis and Kaus Australis refer to the northern and southern portions of the bow, respectively. Α Sgr despite having the "alpha" designation, is not the brightest star of the constellation, having a magnitude of only 3.96. It is towards the bottom center of the map. Instead, the brightest star is Epsilon Sagittarii, at magnitude 1.85.
Sigma Sagittarii is the constellation's second-brightest star at magnitude 2.08. Nunki is a B2V star 260 light years away. "Nunki" is a Babylonian name of uncertain origin, but thought to represent the sacred Babylonian city of Eridu on the Euphrates, which would make Nunki the oldest star name in use. Zeta Sagittarii, with apparent magnitude 2.61 of A2 spectra, is a double star whose two components have magnitudes 3.3 and 3.5. Delta Sagittarii, is a K2 spectra star with magnitude 2.71 about 350 light years from Earth. Eta Sagittarii is a double star with component magnitudes of 3.18 and 10, while Pi Sagittarii is a triple system whose components have magnitudes 3.7, 3.8, 6.0. The Bayer designation Beta Sagittarii is shared by two star systems, β¹ Sagittarii, with apparent magnitude 3.96, β² Sagittarii, magnitude 7.4. The two stars are 378 light years from earth. Beta Sagittarii, located at a position associated with the forelegs of the centaur, has the traditional name Arkab, meaning "achilles tendon."
Nova Sagittarii 2015 No. 2 was discovered on 15 March 2015, by John Seach of Chatsworth Island, NSW, Australia. It lies near the center of the constellation, it reached a peak magnitude of 4.3 before fading. The Milky Way is at its densest near Sagittarius; as a result, Sagittarius contains many star clusters and nebulae. Sagittarius contains several well-known nebulae, near λ Sagittarii; the Lagoon Nebula] is an emission nebula, located 5,000 light-years from Earth and measures 140 light-years by 60 light-years. Though it appears grey in telescopes to the unaided eye, long-exposure photographs reveal its pink hue, common to emission nebulae, it is bright, with an integrated magnitude of 3.0. The Lagoon Nebula was discovered independently by John Flamsteed in 1680, Guillaume Le Gentil in 1747, Charles Messier in 1764; the central area of the Lagoon Nebula is known as the Hourglass Nebula, so named for its distinctive shape. The Hourglass Nebula has its shape because of matter propelled by Herschel 36.
The Lagoon Nebula features three dark nebulae catalogued in Barnard's Catalog. The Lagoon Nebula was instrumental in the discovery of Bok globules, as Bart Bok studied prints of the nebula intensively in 1947. 17,000 Bok globules were discovered in the nebula nine years as a part of the Palomar Sky Survey. The Omega Nebula is a bright nebula, sometimes called the Horseshoe Nebula or Swan Nebula, it is 4890 light-years from Earth. It was discovered in 1746 by Philippe Loys de Chésaux. Most viewed as a checkmark, it was seen as a swan by George F. Chambers in 1889, a loon by Roy Bishop, as a curl of smoke by Camille Flammarion; the Trifid N
Pisces (constellation)
Pisces is a constellation of the zodiac. Its name is the Latin plural for fish, it lies between Aquarius to Aries to the east. The ecliptic and the celestial equator intersect in Virgo, its symbol is. The vernal equinox is located in Pisces, due south of ω Psc, due to precession drifting below the western fish towards Aquarius. Van Maanen's Star, at 12.35 magnitude, is located in this constellation, along with others, such as HD 222410, at 7.45 magnitude. Alrescha, otherwise Alpha Piscium, 139 lightyears, class A2, apparent magnitude 3.62 Fumalsamakah, otherwise Beta Piscium, 492 lightyears, class B6Ve, apparent magnitude 4.48 Delta Piscium, 305 lightyears, class K5III, apparent magnitude 4.44 Epsilon Piscium, 190 lightyears, class K0III, apparent magnitude 4.27 Revati, otherwise Zeta Piscium, 148 lightyears, class A7IV, apparent magnitude 5.21 Alpherg, otherwise Eta Piscium, 294 lightyears, class G8III, apparent magnitude 3.62 Torcular, otherwise Omicron Piscium, 258 lightyears, class K0III, apparent magnitude 4.2 Omega Piscium, 106 lightyears, class F4IV, apparent magnitude 4.03 Gamma Piscium, 320 lightyears, apparent magnitude 12.078.
Κομμένο πρόσωπο Piscium, 680 lightyears, apparent magnitude 16.9 M74 is a loosely wound spiral galaxy in Pisces, found at a distance of 30 million light years. It has many clusters of young stars and the associated nebulae, showing extensive regions of star formation, it was discovered by Pierre Méchain, a French astronomer, in 1780. A type II-P supernova was discovered in the outer regions of M74 by Robert Evans in June 2003. NGC 488 is an isolated face-on prototypical spiral galaxy. NGC 520 is a pair of colliding galaxies located 90 million lightyears away. CL 0024+1654 is a massive galaxy cluster that lenses the galaxy behind it, creating arc-shaped images of the background galaxy; the cluster is made up of yellow elliptical and spiral galaxies, at a distance of 3.6 billion light-years from Earth, half as far away as the background galaxy, at a distance of 5.7 billion light-years.3C 31 is an active galaxy and radio source in Perseus located at a distance of 237 million light-years from Earth.
Its jets, caused by the supermassive black hole at its center, extend several million light-years in both directions, making them some of the largest objects in the universe. Pisces originates from some composition of the Babylonian constellations Šinunutu4 "the great swallow" in current western Pisces, Anunitum the "Lady of the Heaven", at the place of the northern fish. In the first-millennium BC texts known as the Astronomical Diaries, part of the constellation was called DU. NU. NU. Pisces is associated with Aphrodite and Eros, who escaped from the monster Typhon by leaping into the sea and transforming themselves into fish. In order not to lose each other, they tied themselves together with rope; the Romans adopted the Greek legend, with Venus and Cupid acting as the counterparts for Aphrodite and Eros. The knot of the rope is marked by Alpha Piscium called Al-Rischa. In 1690, the astronomer Johannes Hevelius in his Firmamentum Sobiescianum regarded the constellation Pisces as being composed of four subdivisions: Piscis Boreus: σ – 68 – 65 – 67 – ψ1 – ψ2 – ψ3 – χ – φ – υ – 91 – τ – 82 – 78 Psc.
Linum Boreum: χ – ρ,94 – VX – η – π – ο – α Psc. Linum Austrinum: α – ξ – ν – μ – ζ – ε – δ – 41 – 35 – ω Psc. Piscis Austrinus: ω – ι – θ – 7 – β – 5 – κ,9 – λ – TX Psc. Be aware that Piscis Austrinus more refers to a separate constellation in its own right. Both fish depicted in Pisces are said to be the offspring of the one greater fish in the constellation Piscis Austrinus. In 1754, the astronomer John Hill proposed to treat part of Pisces as a separate constellation, called Testudo 24 – 27 – YY – 33 – 29 Psc. centred a natural but faint asterism in which the star 20 Psc is intended to be the head of the turtle. However the proposal was neglected by other astronomers with the exception of Admiral Smyth, who mentioned it in his book The Bedford Catalogue, it is now obsolete; the Fishes are associated with the German legend of Antenteh, who owned just a tub and a crude cabin when he met a magical fish. They offered him a wish. However, his wife begged him to ask for a beautiful furnished home.
This wish was granted. She asked to be a queen and have a palace, but when she asked to become a goddess, the fish became angry and took the palace and home, leaving the couple with the tub and cabin once again; the tub in the story is sometimes recognized as the Great Square of Pegasus. The stars of Pisces were incorporated into several constellations in Chinese astronomy. Wai-ping was a fence that kept a pig farmer from falling into the marshes and kept the pigs where they belonged, it was represented by Alpha, Epsilon, Zeta, Mu, Nu, Xi Piscium. The marshes were represented by the four stars designated Phi Ceti; the northern fish of Pisces was a part of the House of the Sandal, Koui-siou. Pisces is a dim constellation located next to Aquarius, Aries. While the astrological sign Pisces per definition runs from ecliptical longitude 330° to 0, this position is now covered by the constellation of Aquarius, due to
Galaxy group
A galaxy group or group of galaxies is an aggregation of galaxies comprising about 50 or fewer gravitationally bound members, each at least as luminous as the Milky Way. The groups and clusters of galaxies can themselves be clustered, into superclusters of galaxies; the Milky Way galaxy is part of a group of galaxies called the Local Group. Groups of galaxies are the smallest aggregates of galaxies, they contain no more than 50 galaxies in a diameter of 1 to 2 megaparsecs. Their mass is 1013 solar masses; the spread of velocities for the individual galaxies is about 150 km/s. However, this definition should be used as a guide only, as larger and more massive galaxy systems are sometimes classified as galaxy groups. Groups are the most common structures of galaxies in the universe, comprising at least 50% of the galaxies in the local universe. Groups have a mass range between those of the large elliptical galaxies and clusters of galaxies. In the local universe, about half of the groups exhibit diffuse X-ray emissions from their intracluster media.
Those that emit X-rays appear to have early-type galaxies as members. The diffuse X-ray emissions come from zones within the inner 10-50% of the groups' virial radius 50-500 kpc. There are several subtypes of groups. A compact group consists of a small number of galaxies around five, in close proximity and isolated from other galaxies and formations; the first compact group to be discovered was Stephan's Quintet, found in 1877. Stephan's Quintet is named for a compact group of four galaxies plus an unassociated foreground galaxy. Astronomer Paul Hickson created a catalogue of such groups in the Hickson Compact Groups. Compact groups of galaxies show the effect of dark matter, as the visible mass is less than that needed to gravitationally hold the galaxies together in a bound group. Compact galaxy groups are not dynamically stable over Hubble time, thus showing that galaxies evolve by merger, over the timescale of the age of the universe. Fossil galaxy groups, fossil groups, or fossil clusters are believed to be the end-result of galaxy merging within a normal galaxy group, leaving behind the X-ray halo of the progenitor group.
Galaxies within a group merge. The physical process behind this galaxy-galaxy merger is dynamical friction; the time-scales for dynamical friction on luminous galaxies suggest that fossil groups are old, undisturbed systems that have seen little infall of L* galaxies since their initial collapse. Fossil groups are thus an important laboratory for studying the formation and evolution of galaxies and the intragroup medium in an isolated system. Fossil groups may still contain unmerged dwarf galaxies, but the more massive members of the group have condensed into the central galaxy; the closest fossil group to the Milky Way is NGC 6482, an elliptical galaxy at a distance of 180 million light-years located in the constellation of Hercules. Proto-groups are groups, they are the smaller form of protoclusters. These contain galaxies and protogalaxies embedded in dark matter haloes that are in the process of fusing into group-formations of singular dark matter halos. Illustris project
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