Is the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 5018 a post-merger remnant?
L. M. Buson1 – F. Bertola2 – A. Bressan1 – D. Burstein3 – M. Cappellari4 1 – INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, vicolo dell’Osservatorio 5, 35122 Padova, Italy 2 – Dipartimento di Astronomia, Università di Padova, vicolo dell’Osservatorio 2, 35122 Padova, Italy 3 – Department of Physics & Astronomy, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287-1504, USA 4 – Leiden Observatory, Postbus 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands Received 16 February 2004 / Accepted 13 June 2004 Abstract NGC 5018, one of the weakest UV emitters among giant ellipticals (gE) observed with IUE, appears to consist of an optical stellar population very similar to that of the compact, dwarf elliptical M 32, which is several magnitudes fainter in luminosity than NGC 5018 and whose stellar population is known to be 3 Gyr old. Here we show that the mid-UV spectra of these two galaxies are also very similar down to an angular scale hundreds times smaller than the IUE large aperture (as probed by HST/FOS UV spectra
