Malin 1

Malin 1

(mal -in) An extreme example of a LSB galaxy at a distance of 330 Mpc. It has a very extended, extremely low surface brightness disk comprised of an enormous mass of neutral hydrogen, with a low-luminosity Seyfert nucleus at its core. It is interpreted as an unevolving disk galaxy with such a low mass density that the chemical composition and gas fraction change very slowly over the lifetime of the galaxy. It may be a prototype for damped Lyman-alpha absorption systems seen in the spectra of quasars at high redshift.