Distance
Maffei 1 is located only 0.55° from the galactic plane in the middle of the zone of avoidance and suffers from about 4.7 magnitudes of extinction (a factor of about 1/70) in visible light. In addition to extinction, observation of Maffei 1 is further hindered by the fact that it is covered by myriads of faint Milky Way stars, which can easily be confused with its own. As a result, determining its distance has been particularly difficult.
In 1971, soon after its discovery, Hyron Spinrad estimated the distance to Maffei 1 at about 1 Mpc, which would place it within the Local Group of galaxies. In 1983 this estimate was revised up to 2.1+1.3
−0.8 Mpc by Ronald Buta and Marshall McCall using the general relation between the luminosity and velocity dispersion for elliptical galaxies. That distance puts Maffei 1 well outside the Local Group, but close enough to have influenced it in the past.
In 1993 Gerard Luppino and John Tonry used surface brightness fluctuations to derive a new distance estimate to Maffei 1 of 4.15 ± 0.5 Mpc. Later in 2001, Tim Davidge and Sidney van den Bergh used adaptive optics to observe the brightest asymptotic giant branch stars in Maffei 1 and concluded that it is located at the distance 4.4+0.6
−0.5 Mpc from the Sun. The latest determination of the distance to Maffei 1, which is based on the re-calibrated luminosity/velocity dispersion relation for the elliptical galaxies and the updated extinction, is 2.85 ± 0.36 Mpc.
The larger (≥3 Mpc) distances reported in the past 20 years would imply that Maffei 1 has never been close enough to the Local Group to significantly influence its dynamics.
Maffei 1 moves away from the Sun at the speed of about 66 km/s. Its velocity relative to the Local Group's center of mass is, however, 297 km/s away. That means that Maffei 1 participates in the general expansion of the Universe.
Read more about this topic: Maffei 1
Other articles related to "distance, distances":
... E-statistics, or energy statistics, are functions of distances between statistical observations ... Mahalanobis distance is used in statistics ... Hamming distance and Lee distance are used in coding theory ...
... length sets up the fixed relationship between the field of view and the working distance ... Working distance is the distance between the back of the lens and the target object ...
... to the inverse fourth-power of the distance ... very accurately where an object appears on the sky, but cannot measure the distance accurately at all ... Radar, on the other hand, directly measures the distance to the object (and how fast it is changing) ...
... Further information Middle distance track event The most common middle distance track events are the 800 metres, 1500 metres and mile run, although the 3000 metres may also be ... The 880 yard run, or half mile, was the forebear of the 800 m distance and it has its roots in competitions in the United Kingdom in the 1830s ... Physiologically, these middle distance events demand that athletes have good aerobic and anaerobic energy producing systems, and also that they have strong speed endurance ...
Famous quotes containing the word distance:
“For time is the longest distance between two places.”
—Tennessee Williams (19141983)
“Remember? We sat on a slab of rock.
From this distance in time,
it seems the color
of iris, rotting and turning purpler,
but it was only
the usual gray rock”
—Robert Lowell (19171977)
“We have been told over and over about the importance of bonding to our children. Rarely do we hear about the skill of letting go, or, as one parent said, that we raise our children to leave us. Early childhood, as our kids gain skills and eagerly want some distance from us, is a time to build a kind of adult-child balance which permits both of us room.”
—Joan Sheingold Ditzion (20th century)