Galaxy Cluster Leaving Trail Of Hot Gas In Its Wake After Eating Its Neighbor

Space.com

The Chandra X-ray Observatory view of galaxy group NGC 4839 has revealed that it is "plunging into the Coma galaxy cluster and leaving behind an extraordinary tail of superheated gas," according to NASA.   Credit: NASA/CXC/A. Hobart

Transcript

00:00Visit Chandra's Beautiful Universe

00:04NGC 4839

00:08A group of galaxies is plunging into

00:12the Koma galaxy cluster and leaving behind an extraordinary

00:16tale of superheated gas. Astronomers have confirmed

00:20this is the longest known tale behind a galaxy group and used it

00:24to gain a deeper understanding of how galaxy clusters, some of the

00:28largest structures in the universe, grow to their enormous sizes.

00:32Astronomers trained NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory

00:36on the galaxy group NGC 4839

00:40Galaxy groups are collections of about 50 galaxies or

00:44less that are bound together by gravity.

00:48Galaxy clusters are even larger and can contain hundreds or thousands

00:52of individual galaxies. Both galaxy clusters and

00:56galaxy groups are enveloped by huge amounts of hot gas

01:00that are best studied using X-rays.

01:02These superheated

01:04pools of gas, though extremely

01:06thin and diffuse, represent

01:08a significant portion of the mass

01:10in galaxy groups or clusters

01:12and are crucial for understanding these systems.

01:14NGC 4839 is located

01:18near the edge of the Koma galaxy cluster,

01:20one of the largest known clusters in the universe, about

01:24340 million light-years away.

01:26As NGC 4839 moves toward the center of the

01:30Koma cluster, the hot gas in the galaxy group is stripped away

01:34by its collision with gas in the cluster.

01:36This results in a tail forming behind the galaxy group.

01:40This comet-like tail is 1.5 million light-years long,

01:44or hundreds of thousands of times

01:46the distance between the sun and the nearest star,

01:48making it the longest tail ever seen trailing

01:52behind a group of galaxies.

01:54This gas is a key ingredient in making

01:56future generations of stars and planets.

01:58The current brightness of the tail

02:02gives astronomers a special chance

02:04to study the tail's gas before

02:06it mixes in with the hot gas in the cluster

02:08and becomes too faint to study.

02:10The gas in the tail behind

02:12NGC 4839

02:14will ultimately merge with the large amount

02:16of hot gas already present

02:18in the Koma cluster.

02:28Next slide.

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