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Published February 5, 1988 | public
Journal Article

IRAS 14348-1447, an Ultraluminous Pair of Colliding, Gas-Rich Galaxies: The Birth of a Quasar?

Abstract

Ground-based observations of the object IRAS 14348-1447, which was discovered with the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, show that it is an extremely luminous colliding galaxy system that emits more than 95 percent of its energy at far-infrared wavelengths. IRAS 14348-1447, which is receeding from the sun at 8 percent of the speed of light, has a bolometric luminosity more than 100 times larger than that of our galaxy, and is therefore as luminous as optical quasars. New optical, infrared, and spectroscopic measurements suggest that the dominant luminosity source is a dust-enshrouded quasar. The fuel for the intense activity is an enormous supply of molecular gas. Carbon monoxide emission has been detected at a wavelength of 2.6 millimeters by means of a new, more sensitive receiver recently installed on the 12-meter telescope of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. IRAS 14348-1447 is the most distant and luminous source of carbon monoxide line emission yet detected. The derived mass of interstellar molecular hydrogen is 6 x 10^(10) solar masses. This value is approximately 20 times that of the molecular gas content of the Milky Way and is similar to the largest masses of atomic hydrogen found in galaxies. A large mass of molecular gas may be a prerequisite for the formation of quasars during strong galactic collisions.

Additional Information

© 1988 American Association for the Advancement of Science. 30 September 1987; Accepted 14 December 1987. We thank D. Chase and T. Folkers for their excellent work in obtaining the CO spectrum at the NRAO telescope. We thank G. Laughlin, R. Narron, R. Ebert, and J. Good at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) for producing the color image. D.B.S. and B.T.S. were supported in part by NASA under the IRAS extended mission program and by the NSF under grant A5T86-13059. N.Z.S. was supported in part by NSF grant A5T84-12473.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
March 5, 2024