Encyclopedia

cD galaxy

cD galaxy

See clusters of galaxies; galaxies.
Collins Dictionary of Astronomy © Market House Books Ltd, 2006

CD galaxy

[¦sē¦dē ′gal·ik·sē]
(astronomy)
A supergiant elliptical galaxy with an extended envelope, the largest known type of galaxy.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
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References in periodicals archive
NGC 1399 is a classic cD galaxy, displaying a huge diffuse halo with upwards of 7,000 globular clusters in orbit.
Other researchers had previously established that a cD galaxy tends to emit visible light pointing toward another cD galaxy -- if the neighboring galaxy resides within 150 million light-years.
And "sure enough, in almost every case," he says, "the radio emission from the [nearby] cD galaxy was indeed strongly aligned with [visible-light emissions] and the cluster in which it was located."
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