NGC 1316 - Fornax A

NGC 1316 is a bright elliptical galaxy in Fornax, southwest of NGC 1365. NGC 1316 is the brightest member of the Fornax 1 Galaxy cluster. It is also the strong radio source Fornax A.

The galaxy is on an E-W line with 7th and 8th magnitude stars respectively 10' and 20' to its east. NGC 1316 has an 2.5' x 1.5' halo elongated NE-SW that moderately brightens to a 1' core.

NGC 1316 lies about 75 million light years away at the edge of the Fornax Cluster, and spans about 60,000 light years across. It is an unusual jumble of stars, gas, and dust: an enormous elliptical galaxy that includes dark dust lanes usually found in a spiral. The outer envelope contain many ripples, loops, and arcs. The wispy, smoke-like tendrils of dust are believed to be the remains of a gas-rich spiral galaxy that collided and merged with NGC 1316 sometime during the last hundred million years.

The Hubble Space Telescope observed very faint star clusters in the central region of NGC 1316, providing additional evidence that NGC 1316 has swallowed whole galaxies. Though such clusters are common in spiral galaxies like our Milky Way, they have rarely been seen in elliptical galaxies, and are among the last visible remains of a galaxy which was cannibalized by NGC 1316.

NGC 1316 is a tremendously powerful source of radio waves, which are thought to be generated by a massive black hole at the galaxy's center. NGC 1316's merger events may have fueled the supermassive central black hole with gas, causing it to become a radio galaxy. Other signs of a violent past include arcs and plumes of stars emanating from the outskirts of the galaxy, and enormously energetic jets of material which extend outwards for more than 250,000 light-years.

NGC 1316 appears to be interacting with NGC 1317, a small spiral galaxy to the north. However, that small spiral galaxy does not appear to be sufficiently large to cause the distortions seen in the structure of NGC 1316.

NGC 1316 was host to two well-observed type Ia supernovae, 1980N and 1981D.