A galaxy squashed as it plows its way through the intergalactic medium
Click for original image.
Time for another cool image on this relatively slow day in the space news business. The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released today by the European Space Agency’s press department. From the caption:
Appearances can be deceiving with objects so far from Earth — IC 3225 itself [the galaxy to the right] is about 100 million light-years away — but the galaxy’s location suggests some causes for this active scene, because IC 3225 is one of over 1300 members of the Virgo galaxy cluster. The density of galaxies in the Virgo cluster creates a rich field of hot gas between them, the so-called ‘intracluster medium’, while the cluster’s extreme mass has its galaxies careening around its centre in some very fast orbits. Ramming through the thick intracluster medium, especially close to the cluster’s centre, places an enormous ‘ram pressure’ on the moving galaxies that strips gas out of them as they go.
IC 3225 is not so close to the cluster core right now, but astronomers have deduced that it has undergone this ram pressure stripping in the past. The galaxy looks as though it’s been impacted by this: it is compressed on one side and there has been noticeably more star formation on this leading edge, while the opposite end is stretched out of shape. Being in such a crowded field, a close call with another galaxy could also have tugged on IC 3225 and created this shape. The sight of this distorted galaxy is a reminder of the incredible forces at work on astronomical scales, which can move and reshape even entire galaxies!
What makes the impact on this galaxy of that intercluster medium so astonishing is that medium is so relatively empty of material. The space between galaxies in the Virgo cluster is in all intents and purposes a vacuum far more empty than any that we can create in a chamber on Earth. And yet it was enough to distort this galaxy and cause star formation on the galaxy’s leading edge.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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Click for original image.
Time for another cool image on this relatively slow day in the space news business. The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and released today by the European Space Agency’s press department. From the caption:
Appearances can be deceiving with objects so far from Earth — IC 3225 itself [the galaxy to the right] is about 100 million light-years away — but the galaxy’s location suggests some causes for this active scene, because IC 3225 is one of over 1300 members of the Virgo galaxy cluster. The density of galaxies in the Virgo cluster creates a rich field of hot gas between them, the so-called ‘intracluster medium’, while the cluster’s extreme mass has its galaxies careening around its centre in some very fast orbits. Ramming through the thick intracluster medium, especially close to the cluster’s centre, places an enormous ‘ram pressure’ on the moving galaxies that strips gas out of them as they go.
IC 3225 is not so close to the cluster core right now, but astronomers have deduced that it has undergone this ram pressure stripping in the past. The galaxy looks as though it’s been impacted by this: it is compressed on one side and there has been noticeably more star formation on this leading edge, while the opposite end is stretched out of shape. Being in such a crowded field, a close call with another galaxy could also have tugged on IC 3225 and created this shape. The sight of this distorted galaxy is a reminder of the incredible forces at work on astronomical scales, which can move and reshape even entire galaxies!
What makes the impact on this galaxy of that intercluster medium so astonishing is that medium is so relatively empty of material. The space between galaxies in the Virgo cluster is in all intents and purposes a vacuum far more empty than any that we can create in a chamber on Earth. And yet it was enough to distort this galaxy and cause star formation on the galaxy’s leading edge.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Space news day less slow with word an Intelsat bird has broken up in orbit
I looked at that and wondered how the tenuous interstellar medium could have that effect, then I wondered if it was evidence of dark matter.
M. Murcek: I had planned to post about the satellite break-up, forgot, and then was reminded by stringer Jay. Now posted.