ESO 286-19

ESO 286-19 known as IRAS 20551-4250, is a galaxy merger located in the constellation of Microscopium. It is located 609 million light years away from Earth. It is an ultraluminous infrared galaxy.

Characteristics

ESO 286-19 is a late-stager merger. A product of two colliding disk galaxies, it is found distorted, with a long tidal tail that is extending to the right from its main body while the shorter tidal tail is curving towards the left direction. It has knotted structures. There is a distribution of cold molecular gas from the galaxy's southeast region.
A single nucleus has been detected in ESO 286–19 by both XMM Newton and Chandra X-ray Observatory although undetected by NuSTAR. According to observations made by Chandra, the soft X-ray emission of the galaxy is elongated while having a point-like hard X-ray emission. However, its polarized flux is faint.
ESO 286-19 is also an extremely bright galaxy with a luminosity of L_IR ~ 10¹² L_Θ. It also experiences a starburst. A spectroscopic and photometric analysis found the galaxy has an old stellar population mass of M_Θ. It also has much young, recently formed stars of M_Θ contributing to ~ 2 of the stellar mass. The galaxy also has molecular hydrogen with a mass of M_Θ.
According to results from Cycle 2 observations conducted by Atacama Large Millimeter Array, ESO 286-19 harbors an obscured active galactic nucleus. The nucleus shows HCN/HCO⁺/HNC J = 3-2 emission lines that are found vibrationally excited with a high energy level of v ₂ = 1. Due to a likely line opacity correction, the lines are found to have an excitation temperature and flux ratio amidst v ₂ = 1f and v = 0. Additionally, a broad emission line component was found from a CO J = 3-2 emission line with a measurement of full width at half maximum ~ 500 km s⁻¹. This finding suggested it was caused by molecular outflow in the galaxy with a mass of M_outf ~ M_Θ and a kinetic power of P_outf ~ 1%. Based on the outflow, it has an X-ray luminosity of L_2-10keV = ergs⁻¹.