Jellyfish galaxy plowing its way through the intercluster medium
Click for original image.
The European Space Agency (ESA) today released another in a series of images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope during the past two years of what astronomers call jellyfish galaxies, so named because such galaxies have tendrils that extend out beyond the galaxy like the tendrils of jellyfish. This new picture is to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, and shows a galaxy about 900 million light years away.
[T]he space between galaxies in a cluster is … pervaded with a searingly hot plasma known as the intracluster medium. While this plasma is extremely tenuous, galaxies moving through it experience it almost like swimmers fighting against a current, and this interaction can strip galaxies of their star-forming gas. This interaction between the intracluster medium and the galaxies is called ram-pressure stripping, and is the process responsible for the trailing tendrils of this jellyfish galaxy.
The arrow in the image indicates the galaxy’s direction of travel through the intercluster medium, resulting in the outer parts of the leading arm to be pushed backward above the galaxy, while material at its rear trail behind. Note also the blue star-forming regions at the galaxy’s bow. The ram pressure is also apparently causing more star formation in this part of the galaxy compared to elsewhere.
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Click for original image.
The European Space Agency (ESA) today released another in a series of images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope during the past two years of what astronomers call jellyfish galaxies, so named because such galaxies have tendrils that extend out beyond the galaxy like the tendrils of jellyfish. This new picture is to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, and shows a galaxy about 900 million light years away.
[T]he space between galaxies in a cluster is … pervaded with a searingly hot plasma known as the intracluster medium. While this plasma is extremely tenuous, galaxies moving through it experience it almost like swimmers fighting against a current, and this interaction can strip galaxies of their star-forming gas. This interaction between the intracluster medium and the galaxies is called ram-pressure stripping, and is the process responsible for the trailing tendrils of this jellyfish galaxy.
The arrow in the image indicates the galaxy’s direction of travel through the intercluster medium, resulting in the outer parts of the leading arm to be pushed backward above the galaxy, while material at its rear trail behind. Note also the blue star-forming regions at the galaxy’s bow. The ram pressure is also apparently causing more star formation in this part of the galaxy compared to elsewhere.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows 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. 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. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally 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.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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 or subscription:
4. 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.
~900 million beautiful light years away.
900 Million. LIGHT YEARS.
I wonder where it is now.
oh well, back to my bbq.
“I wonder where it is now”
Einstein had some interesting arguments regarding simultaneity, and could claim that where it is now is where it was then.
I hate that simultaneity argument. I can’t prove it wrong, but it _feels_ so very wrong. There is a universal “now”! I insist upon it!
Perhaps a better way of phrasing the question: If one were going to send a probe there (at say 0.25c), where would one aim said probe?
Yes, it would be pointless. By the time it got there, wherever “there” might be, it’s entirely likely that human – and even post-human – civilization would have ended. Let alone by the time any information got back to “us”.
The Jupiter 2 is still out there so is the Doomsday Machine