HEAPOW: Streaking (2014 May 26)
CXC: ESO 137-001: Life Is Too Fast, Too Furious for This Runaway Galaxy
Is it the worst of times for galaxy ESO 137-001? This galaxy is the unfortunate victim of an intergalactic theft. As it tries to artfully dodge through the crowd of galaxies making up the cluster Abell 3627, the hot intracluster gas stealthily steals the cold interstellar medium from ESO 137-001. As the image above shows, this is really a clumsy attempt which has left behind tell-tale evidence of the crime. Or perhaps "tell-tail" evidence is the more appropriate phrase, since, as shown in the picture above (an optical image with an X-ray image superimposed in blue), evidence of the theft can be clearly seen as two X-ray emitting tails of gas trailing behind the galaxy. Astronomers think that the two tails result from the evaporation of the stripped cooler gas from the two major spiral arms in ESO 137-001, producing emission at a temperature of about 10 million degrees visible to an X-ray telescope like the Chandra X-ray Observatory. This theft is bad news for ESO 137-001, since the loss of its material means that the galaxy's capacity to produce new stars is severely reduced. But perhaps the news isn't all bad - astronomers believe they have found some evidence of new stars forming within the trails themselves.
NASA/STScI: Life Is Too Fast, Too Furious for This Runaway Galaxy
ESA/HEIC: Spiral galaxy spills blood and guts
Hubble Heritage: Spiral Galaxy ESO 137-001
APOD: Stripping ESO 137-001 (2014 Mar 28)
http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=33199
http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=33036
http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=18166
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If so, then maybe it's waters that were warmed off the Texas coast that make it possible, thanks to the Gulf Stream.
