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Flies in a spider's web: Galaxy caught in the making
October 12, 2006In nature spiders earn our respect by constructing fascinating, well-organised webs in all shapes and sizes. But the beauty masks a cruel, fatal trap. Analogously, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has found a large galaxy 10.6 billion light-years away from Earth (at a redshift of 2.2) that is stuffing itself with smaller galaxies caught like flies in a web of gravity. The galaxy is so far away that astronomers are seeing it as it looked in the early formative years of the Universe, only 2 billion years after the Big Bang.
The Hubble image shows the Spiderweb Galaxy sitting at the centre of an emergent galaxy cluster, surrounded by hundreds of other galaxies from the cluster.
Team leader George Miley from Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands explains: "The new Hubble image is the best demonstration so far that large massive galaxies are built up by merging smaller ones." The image reaches much deeper than previous ones and shows the merging process in unprecedented detail. Galaxies can be seen as they are sucked into the Spiderweb at speeds of several hundred kilometres per second, from distances of more than a hundred thousand light-years around it.
Radio telescopes have shown that jets of fast particles are being spewed out from the centre of the Spiderweb Galaxy with enormous energies. These jets are believed to be produced by a massive black hole buried deep in the nucleus of the system. The infalling galaxy "flies" are a source of food for this black hole "spider", allowing it to continue disgorging the jets.
The new Hubble image provides a unique real-world example for testing theoretical models of massive galaxy formation. The complexity and clumpiness of the Spiderweb agrees qualitatively with the predictions of such models, but a surprising feature of the Spiderweb Galaxy is the presence of several faint small linear galaxies within the merging structure.
The Spiderweb Galaxy is located in the southern constellation of Hydra (the water snake) and is one of the most massive galaxies known.
This result was published 10th October 2006 in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
ESA/Hubble Information Centre
Radio telescopes have shown that jets of fast particles are being spewed out from the centre of the Spiderweb Galaxy with enormous energies. These jets are believed to be produced by a massive black hole buried deep in the nucleus of the system. The infalling galaxy "flies" are a source of food for this black hole "spider", allowing it to continue disgorging the jets.
The new Hubble image provides a unique real-world example for testing theoretical models of massive galaxy formation. The complexity and clumpiness of the Spiderweb agrees qualitatively with the predictions of such models, but a surprising feature of the Spiderweb Galaxy is the presence of several faint small linear galaxies within the merging structure.
The Spiderweb Galaxy is located in the southern constellation of Hydra (the water snake) and is one of the most massive galaxies known.
This result was published 10th October 2006 in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
ESA/Hubble Information Centre
Galaxy Current Events and Galaxy News RSSNASA spacecraft ready to explore outer solar system
The first NASA spacecraft to image and map the dynamic interactions taking place where the hot solar wind slams into the cold expanse of space is ready for launch Oct. 19. The two-year mission will begin from the Kwajalein Atoll, a part of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
Young Galaxy's Magnetism Surprises Astronomers
Astronomers have made the first direct measurement of the magnetic field in a young, distant galaxy, and the result is a big surprise.
First detection of magnetic field in distant galaxy produces a surprise
Using a powerful radio telescope to peer into the early universe, a team of California astronomers has obtained the first direct measurement of a nascent galaxy's magnetic field as it appeared 6.5 billion years ago.
Infrared Echoes Give NASA's Spitzer a Supernova Flashback
Hot spots near the shattered remains of an exploded star are echoing the blast's first moments, say scientists using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
The Wild, Hidden Cousin of SN 1987A
Over a decade after it exploded, one of the nearest supernovae in the last 25 years has been identified. This result was made possible by combining data from the vast online archives from many of the world's premier telescopes.
Powerful Nearby Supernova Caught By Web
One of the nearest supernovas in the last 25 years has been identified over a decade after it exploded. This result was made possible by combining data from the vast online archives from many of the world's premier telescopes.
A 'wild cousin' emerges from family tree of exploding stars
Astronomers may have discovered the relative of a freakishly behaving exploding star once thought to be the only one of its kind.
Scientists Detect Cosmic 'Dark Flow' Across Billions of Light Years
Using data from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), scientists have identified an unexpected motion in distant galaxy clusters. The cause, they suggest, is the gravitational attraction of matter that lies beyond the observable universe.
BOSS: the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) uses a 2.5-meter telescope with a wider field of view than any other large telescope, located on a mountaintop in New Mexico called Apache Point and devoted solely to mapping the universe.
Immigrant Sun: Our star could be far from where it started in Milky Way
A long-standing scientific belief holds that stars tend to hang out in the same general part of a galaxy where they originally formed. Some astrophysicists have recently questioned whether that is true, and now new simulations show that, at least in galaxies similar to our own Milky Way, stars such as the sun can migrate great distances.
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