NGC 6810


NGC 6810 is a spiral galaxy approximately 87 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Pavo.

Observational history

NGC 6810 was discovered by John Herschel on July 10, 1834. It was later added to the New General Catalogue by John Louis Emil Dreyer.

Misclassification of NGC 6810

This galaxy used to be classified as a Seyfert 2 galaxy, but that is probably incorrect. Recent X-ray observations provide no evidence of any active galactic nucleus activity, and high resolution optical spectra do not confirm the status of NGC 6810 as a Seyfert galaxy, thus it appears to have been misclassified.

Features

NGC 6810 is an early-type spiral of roughly equivalent mass to the Milky Way. X-ray, optical, IR and radio properties of NGC 6810 are all consistent with a starburst galaxy.

Galactic-scale superwind

Observation of NGC 6810 with XMM-Newton reveals the presence of extended soft X-ray emission within the optical disc of the galaxy and also beyond the optical disc. This, along with Hα filamentation and peculiar minor axis ionized gas kinematics, strongly suggest that NGC 6810 is host to a galactic-scale superwind which is streaming from the starburst region.
The actively star-forming regions and the base radius of the outflow are unusually spread out, and extend out to a radius of ∼6.5 kpc from the nucleus. Most superwinds in other galaxies appear to arise in ≲ 1 kpc-scale nuclear starburst regions. That makes NGC 6810 one of the few ‘disc-wide’ superwinds currently known, because NGC 6810's superwind base extends across nearly 70 percent of the entire galaxy's diameter. Only three other starburst galaxies are known to have broad superwind sources.