WISDOM Project – XXVII. Giant molecular clouds of the lenticular galaxy NGC 1387: similarities with spiral galaxy clouds
ABSTRACT Molecular gas is crucial to understanding star formation and galaxy evolution, but the giant molecular clouds (GMCs) of early-type galaxies (ETGs) have rarely been studied. Here, we present analyses of the spatially resolved GMCs of the lenticular galaxy NGC 1387, exploiting high spatial resolution ($0.15\ \mathrm{ arcsec}$ or 14 pc) $^{12}$CO(2-1) line observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. We identify 1285 individual GMCs and measure the fundamental properties (radius, velocity dispersion, and molecular gas mass) of each with a modified version of the CPROPStoo package. Unusually for an ETG, the GMCs of NGC 1387 follow scaling relations very similar to those of the Milky Way disc and Local Group galaxy clouds, and most are virialized. GMCs with large masses and radii and/or small galactocentric distances have their angular momenta aligned with the large-scale galactic rotation, while other GMCs do not. These results show that ETGs have more diversified GMC properties than previously thought. We discuss potential reasons for such diversity, and viewing-angle dependency is a plausible candidate.
Authors
- Jindra Gensior (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6119-9883)
- Martin Bureau (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4980-1012)
- Ilaria Ruffa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4578-1205)
- Woorak Choi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5033-7208)
- Jacob S Elford (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6139-2226)
- Lijie Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4956-706X)
- Hengyue Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4079-2447)
- Anan Lu
- Selçuk Topal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2132-5632)
- Pandora Dominiak (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-6380-3428)
- Thomas G Williams
- Timothy A Davis
Institutions
- Van Yüzüncü Yıl Üniversitesi (TR)
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- European Southern Observatory (DE)
- Yonsei University (KR)
- Heidelberg University (DE)
- Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory (IT)
- University of Manchester (GB)
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Royal Observatory (GB)
- Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (DE)
- DAWN Center for Independent Living (US)
- McGill University (CA)
- Cardiff University (GB)
- Technical University of Denmark (DK)
- McMaster University (CA)
- University of Edinburgh (GB)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Published
- 2026-02-03
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag221
- Primary Topic
- Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- California Institute of Technology
- Space Telescope Science Institute
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory
- University of Oxford
- European Commission
- Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute
- Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştırma Kurumu
- European Southern Observatory
- National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- Science and Technology Facilities Council
- National Institutes of Natural Sciences