Space
NASA's Hubble Telescope Spotted Two Tiny Galaxies Making Their Way To The Milky Way
Johnson D
First Posted: Aug 16, 2016 05:35 AM EDT
Scientists from NASA working with the Hubble Space Telescope spotted two dwarf galaxies which they believed have travelled from the far flung part of space to the Milky Way.
Tech Times reported that the tiny galaxies known only as Pisces A and B have moved from a part of space called Local Void which is a universe about 150 million light-years wide and populated by only a few galaxies. The two galaxies have spent most of their existence in that empty part of space, causing the environment to interfere with their evolution. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has spotted these galaxies which scientists believed are ready to take their evolution to another level by starting a series of star birth.
"These Hubble images may be snapshots of what present-day dwarf galaxies may have been like at earlier epochs," said lead researcher Erik Tollerud of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. "Studying these and other similar galaxies can provide further clues to dwarf galaxy formation and evolution."
The steady pull of gravity from the crowded part of space has caused these dwarf galaxies to enter this part of space with denser intergalactic gas. This gas-rich environment may have triggered star birth by raining down gas on the galaxies as they make their way through the tightly packed area of space. Scitechdaily.com also reported that scientists also looked at another idea for these galaxies' star births have also been considered by experts. They said that the galaxies may have encountered a gaseous filament, compressing gas in the galaxies that may have influenced star birth.
Based on the galaxies' locations, Tollerud and his team were able to determine that the objects are at the edge of a nearby filament with dense gas. It was also revealed that each galaxy had 10 million stars in them. As many may have already known, dwarf galaxies are the building blocks from which larger galaxies were formed billions of years ago in the universe. They are said to have been living a somewhat empty area of space, Mail Online reported.
"These galaxies may have spent most of their history in the void," Tollerud explained. "If this is true, the void environment would have slowed their evolution. Evidence for the galaxies' void address is that their hydrogen content is somewhat high relative to similar galaxies. In the past, galaxies contained higher concentrations of hydrogen, the fuel needed to make stars. But these galaxies seem to retain that more primitive composition, rather than the enriched composition of contemporary galaxies, due to a less vigorous history of star formation. The galaxies also are quite compact relative to the typical star-forming galaxies in our galactic neighborhood."
Both galaxies are considered to be very young. Scientist have observed that they have at least 20 to 30 bright blue stars in each indicating that they are less than 100 million years old.
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First Posted: Aug 16, 2016 05:35 AM EDT
Scientists from NASA working with the Hubble Space Telescope spotted two dwarf galaxies which they believed have travelled from the far flung part of space to the Milky Way.
Tech Times reported that the tiny galaxies known only as Pisces A and B have moved from a part of space called Local Void which is a universe about 150 million light-years wide and populated by only a few galaxies. The two galaxies have spent most of their existence in that empty part of space, causing the environment to interfere with their evolution. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has spotted these galaxies which scientists believed are ready to take their evolution to another level by starting a series of star birth.
"These Hubble images may be snapshots of what present-day dwarf galaxies may have been like at earlier epochs," said lead researcher Erik Tollerud of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. "Studying these and other similar galaxies can provide further clues to dwarf galaxy formation and evolution."
The steady pull of gravity from the crowded part of space has caused these dwarf galaxies to enter this part of space with denser intergalactic gas. This gas-rich environment may have triggered star birth by raining down gas on the galaxies as they make their way through the tightly packed area of space. Scitechdaily.com also reported that scientists also looked at another idea for these galaxies' star births have also been considered by experts. They said that the galaxies may have encountered a gaseous filament, compressing gas in the galaxies that may have influenced star birth.
Based on the galaxies' locations, Tollerud and his team were able to determine that the objects are at the edge of a nearby filament with dense gas. It was also revealed that each galaxy had 10 million stars in them. As many may have already known, dwarf galaxies are the building blocks from which larger galaxies were formed billions of years ago in the universe. They are said to have been living a somewhat empty area of space, Mail Online reported.
"These galaxies may have spent most of their history in the void," Tollerud explained. "If this is true, the void environment would have slowed their evolution. Evidence for the galaxies' void address is that their hydrogen content is somewhat high relative to similar galaxies. In the past, galaxies contained higher concentrations of hydrogen, the fuel needed to make stars. But these galaxies seem to retain that more primitive composition, rather than the enriched composition of contemporary galaxies, due to a less vigorous history of star formation. The galaxies also are quite compact relative to the typical star-forming galaxies in our galactic neighborhood."
Both galaxies are considered to be very young. Scientist have observed that they have at least 20 to 30 bright blue stars in each indicating that they are less than 100 million years old.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone