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Sauron galaxy bot7/11/2023 We investigate various star formation tracers to determine whether the molecular gas in NGC 4550 is currently forming stars. However, a simulation shows that the gas rotating like the thicker disc naturally results from the coplanar merger of two counter-rotating disc galaxies, demonstrating the feasibility of this scenario for the formation of NGC 4550. The velocity gradient in the CO(1-0) emission shows that the molecular gas rotates like the thicker of the two stellar discs, which is an unexpected alignment of rotations if the thinner disc was formed by a major gas accretion event. Very little molecular gas is detected, only 1×10 7 M ⊙, and its distribution is lopsided, with twice as much molecular gas observed at positive relative velocities than at negative relative velocities. We present observations of the CO(1-0) emission in the central 750 pc (10 arcsec) of the counter-rotating disc galaxy NGC 4550, obtained at the Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM) Plateau de Bure Interferometer.
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