NASA | MSFC | SAO | Chandra X-ray Observatory | 2019 Dec 17
As the holiday season approaches, people in the northern hemisphere will gather indoors to stay warm. In keeping with the season, astronomers have studied two groups of galaxies that are rushing together and producing their own warmth.
The majority of galaxies do not exist in isolation. Rather, they are bound to other galaxies through gravity either in relatively small numbers known as "galaxy groups," or much larger concentrations called "galaxy clusters" consisting of hundreds or thousands of galaxies. Sometimes, these collections of galaxies are drawn toward one another by gravity and eventually merge.
Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, ESA's XMM-Newton, the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), and optical observations with the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, a team of astronomers has found that two galaxy groups are smashing into each other at a remarkable speed of about 4 million miles per hour. This could be the most violent collision yet seen between two galaxy groups.
The system is called NGC 6338, which is located about 380 million light years from Earth. This composite image contains X-ray data from Chandra (displayed in red) that shows hot gas with temperatures upward of about 20 million degrees Celsius, as well as cooler gas detected with Chandra and XMM (shown in blue) that also emits X-rays. The Chandra data have been combined with optical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, showing the galaxies and stars in white. ...
Building a Cluster: Shocks, Cavities, and Cooling Filaments
in the Group–Group Merger NGC 6338 ~ Ewan O'Sullivan et al
- Monthly Notices of the RAS 482(2):2925 (Sep 2019) DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stz1711
- arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1906.07710 > 18 Jun 2019 (v1), 10 Jul 2019 (v2)