Wolf–Lundmark–Melotte
irregular galaxy in the Local Group
The Wolf–Lundmark–Melotte Galaxy (WLM) is a barred irregular galaxy discovered in 1909 by Max Wolf, located on the outer edges of the Local Group. The discovery of the nature of the galaxy was accredited to Knut Lundmark and Philibert Jacques Melotte in 1926. It is located in the constellation of Cetus.
Properties
Wolf–Lundmark–Melotte is a rotating disk that is seen edge-on. It is relatively isolated from the rest of the Local Group, and does not seem to show much evidence of interaction. However, the rotation curve of Wolf–Lundmark–Melotte is asymmetrical, in that the receding side and approaching side of the galaxy are rotating in different ways.
Although isolated, Wolf–Lundmark–Melotte shows evidence of ram pressure stripping. It is far outside of the virial radius of the Milky Way, so it is possible that Wolf–Lundmark–Melotte is currently passing through some relatively dense medium.
Star formation
In 1994, A. E. Dolphin used the Hubble Space Telescope to create a color–magnitude diagram for WLM. It showed that around half of all the star formation in this galaxy occurred during a starburst that started ~13 Gyr ago. During the starburst, the metallicity of WLM rose from [Fe/H] ~ −2.2 to [Fe/H] −1.3.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wolf–Lundmark–Melotte” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.