Lonely Galaxy That Pulled In All Its Neighbors Observed By Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Space.com

The Chandra X-ray Observatory captured imagery of a galaxy that "appears to have pulled in and assimilated all of its former companion galaxies." according to NASA. Galaxy 3C297 is 9.2 billion light-years away and harbors a quasar.  Credit: NASA/CXC/A. Hobart

Transcript

00:00Visit Chandra's Beautiful Universe

00:043C297

00:08A distant and lonely galaxy

00:12appears to have pulled in and assimilated all of its former

00:16companion galaxies. This result, made with NASA's

00:20Chandra X-ray Observatory and the International Gemini Observatory

00:24may push the limits for how quickly astronomers expect galaxies to grow

00:28in the early universe. The unexpectedly solo galaxy

00:32is located about 9.2 billion light-years from Earth

00:36and contains a quasar, a supermassive black hole,

00:40pulling in gas at the center of the galaxy and driving powerful jets of

00:44matter seen in radio waves. The environment of this

00:48galaxy, known as 3C297, appears to

00:52have the key features of a galaxy cluster, enormous structures

00:56that usually contain hundreds or even thousands of galaxies.

01:00Yet 3C297 stands alone.

01:02A team of researchers

01:04expected to see at least a dozen galaxies

01:06within 3C297,

01:08yet they found only one.

01:10Accurate distance measurements

01:12from Gemini data revealed

01:14that none of the 19 galaxies that

01:16appear close to 3C297

01:18in the optical image are actually

01:20at the same distance as the lonely galaxy.

01:22The question is,

01:24what happened to all of these galaxies

01:26in 3C297?

01:28The team thinks the gravitational pull

01:30of the one large galaxy combined

01:32with interactions between the galaxies

01:34was too strong and they merged

01:36with the large galaxy.

01:38For these galaxies, apparently

01:40resistance was futile.

01:42The researchers think 3C297

01:44is no longer a galaxy cluster

01:46but a fossil group.

01:48This is the end stage

01:50of a galaxy pulling in and merging

01:52with several other galaxies.

01:54While many other fossil groups

01:56have been detected before,

01:58this one is particularly distant,

02:00at 9.2 billion light-years away.

02:02The previous record holders

02:04for fossil groups were at distances

02:06of 4.9 and 7.9 billion light-years.

02:10It may be challenging to explain

02:12how the universe can create this system

02:14only 4.6 billion years

02:16after the Big Bang.

02:18This result doesn't break the current ideas

02:20of cosmology, but it begins

02:22to push the limits on how quickly

02:24both galaxies and galaxy clusters

02:26must have formed.

02:28The hopefuls are having

02:30generally native split

02:31within C1 to 22.000 to 22.000%

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