Zwicky 8338: Chandra Finds Remarkable Galactic Ribbon Unfurled

Find out the latest thinking about our universe.
User avatar
bystander
Apathetic Retiree
Posts: 21593
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:06 pm
Location: Oklahoma

Zwicky 8338: Chandra Finds Remarkable Galactic Ribbon Unfurled

Post by bystander » Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:58 pm

Zwicky 8338: Chandra Finds Remarkable Galactic Ribbon Unfurled
NASA | MSFC | SAO | Chandra X-ray Observatory | 2015 Dec 21
[c][imghover=http://chandra.si.edu/photo/2015/z8338/z8338_525.jpg]http://chandra.si.edu/photo/2015/z8338/ ... ed_525.jpg[/imghover][/c]Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/University of Bonn/G. Schellenberger et al; Optical: INT[hr][/hr]
An extraordinary ribbon of hot gas trailing behind a galaxy like a tail has been discovered using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, as described in our latest press release. This ribbon, or X-ray tail, is likely due to gas stripped from the galaxy as it moves through a vast cloud of hot intergalactic gas. With a length of at least 250,000 light years, it is likely the largest such tail ever detected. In this new composite image, X-rays from Chandra (blue) have been combined with data in visible light from the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (yellow) in the Canary Islands, Spain.

The tail is located in the galaxy cluster Zwicky 8338, which is almost 700 million light years from Earth. The length of the tail is more than twice the diameter of the entire Milky Way galaxy. The tail contains gas at temperatures of about ten million degrees, about twenty million degrees cooler than the intergalactic gas, but still hot enough to glow brightly in X-rays that Chandra can detect.

The researchers think the tail was created as a galaxy known as CGCG254-021, or perhaps a group of galaxies dominated by this large galaxy, plowed through the hot gas in Zwicky 8338. The pressure exerted by this rapid motion caused gas to be stripped away from the galaxy. ...

The long X-ray tail in Zwicky 8338 - G. Schellenberger, T. H. Reiprich
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.
— Garrison Keillor