Space
Space Investigators Solve Mystery Behind Galaxy Deaths
Leon Lamb
First Posted: Jan 20, 2017 05:33 AM EST
Space investigators have finally solved the mystery behind the vicious deaths of galaxies, and the galactic police just cannot seem to do anything about it.
Gizmodo reported that a phenomenon called ram-pressure stripping is the culprit behind the countless galactic deaths. This occurs when a galaxy's gas is stripped away, leaving insufficient material for new star births, giving the astronomical cluster an early end.
This was discovered by a team of global scientists at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) with the use of Sloan Digital Sky and Arecibo Legacy Fast (ALFA) surveys, which compiled large studies of 11,000 galaxies across the vast universe.
Toby Brown, who led the study, said that galaxies are located within clouds of dark matter called dark matter halos. This unknown dark energy comprises 68 percent of the universe, only leaving 5 percent to ordinary matter and 27 percent to other invisible accounted objects.
"During their lifetimes, galaxies can inhabit halos of different sizes, ranging from masses typical of our own Milky Way to halos thousands of times more massive," explained Brown, a PhD candidate at ICRAR and Swinburne University of Technology, in the ICRAR press release. "As galaxies fall through these larger halos, the superheated intergalactic plasma between them removes their gas in a fast-acting process called ram-pressure stripping."
"We've found this removal of gas by stripping is potentially the dominant way galaxies are quenched by their surrounds, meaning their gas is removed and star formation shuts down," he added.
Meanwhile, another gas-consuming phenomenon called strangulation also causes galaxies to starve to death. This is when a star-formation process requires more gas than what is available.
This study, titled Cold gas stripping in satellite galaxies: from pairs to clusters, was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on Jan. 17.
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First Posted: Jan 20, 2017 05:33 AM EST
Space investigators have finally solved the mystery behind the vicious deaths of galaxies, and the galactic police just cannot seem to do anything about it.
Gizmodo reported that a phenomenon called ram-pressure stripping is the culprit behind the countless galactic deaths. This occurs when a galaxy's gas is stripped away, leaving insufficient material for new star births, giving the astronomical cluster an early end.
This was discovered by a team of global scientists at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) with the use of Sloan Digital Sky and Arecibo Legacy Fast (ALFA) surveys, which compiled large studies of 11,000 galaxies across the vast universe.
Toby Brown, who led the study, said that galaxies are located within clouds of dark matter called dark matter halos. This unknown dark energy comprises 68 percent of the universe, only leaving 5 percent to ordinary matter and 27 percent to other invisible accounted objects.
"During their lifetimes, galaxies can inhabit halos of different sizes, ranging from masses typical of our own Milky Way to halos thousands of times more massive," explained Brown, a PhD candidate at ICRAR and Swinburne University of Technology, in the ICRAR press release. "As galaxies fall through these larger halos, the superheated intergalactic plasma between them removes their gas in a fast-acting process called ram-pressure stripping."
"We've found this removal of gas by stripping is potentially the dominant way galaxies are quenched by their surrounds, meaning their gas is removed and star formation shuts down," he added.
Meanwhile, another gas-consuming phenomenon called strangulation also causes galaxies to starve to death. This is when a star-formation process requires more gas than what is available.
This study, titled Cold gas stripping in satellite galaxies: from pairs to clusters, was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on Jan. 17.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone