ESO 137-001, also known as the Jellyfish Galaxy, is a

barred spiral galaxy A barred spiral galaxy is a spiral galaxy with a central bar-shaped structure composed of stars. Bars are found in about two thirds of all spiral galaxies in the local universe, and generally affect both the motions of stars and interstellar gas ...

located in the constellation

Triangulum Australe Triangulum Australe is a small constellation in the far Southern Celestial Hemisphere. Its name is Latin for "the southern triangle", which distinguishes it from Triangulum in the northern sky and is derived from the Acute triangle, acute, almost ...

and in the cluster Abell 3627. As the galaxy moves to the center of the

galaxy cluster A galaxy cluster, or a cluster of galaxies, is a structure that consists of anywhere from hundreds to thousands of galaxies that are bound together by gravity, with typical masses ranging from 1014 to 1015 solar masses. Clusters consist of galax ...

at 1900 km/s, it is stripped by hot gas, thus creating a 260,000

light-year A light-year, alternatively spelled light year (ly or lyr), is a unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equal to exactly , which is approximately 9.46 trillion km or 5.88 trillion mi. As defined by the International Astr ...

long tail. This is called

ram pressure Ram pressure is a pressure exerted on a body moving through a fluid medium, caused by relative bulk motion of the fluid rather than random thermal motion. It causes a drag (physics), drag force to be exerted on the body. Ram pressure is given in ...

stripping (RPS). The intergalactic gas in Abell 3627 is at 100 million

Kelvin The kelvin (symbol: K) is the base unit for temperature in the International System of Units (SI). The Kelvin scale is an absolute temperature scale that starts at the lowest possible temperature (absolute zero), taken to be 0 K. By de ...

, which causes

star formation Star formation is the process by which dense regions within molecular clouds in interstellar space—sometimes referred to as "stellar nurseries" or "star-forming regions"—Jeans instability, collapse and form stars. As a branch of astronomy, sta ...

in the tails. The galaxy has a low amount of Hl regions which combine to a total mass of 3.5x10^8 solar masses, only 10% of which is located in the main disk of ESO 137-001.

History

The

galaxy A galaxy is a Physical system, system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar medium, interstellar gas, cosmic dust, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek ' (), literally 'milky', ...

was discovered by Ming Sun in 2005.

Galaxy's fate

MUSE view of the ram-pressure stripped galaxy ESO 137-001

The stripping of gas is thought to have a significant effect on the galaxy's development, removing cold gas from the

, shutting down the formation of new

stars A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by self-gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night; their immense distances from Earth make them appear as fixed points of ...

in the galaxy, and changing the appearance of inner spiral arms and bulges because of the effects of

Gallery

ALMA explores a Cosmic Jellyfish.tif, ALMA explores a Cosmic Jellyfish. NASA's Hubble Finds Life is Too Fast, Too Furious for This Runaway Galaxy (12952512944).jpg, Runaway Galaxy (12952512944)

References

External links

* NASA gallery
ESO 137-001
* Cornell University
The Flying Spaghetti Monster: Impact of magnetic fields on ram pressure stripping in disk galaxies
Triangulum Australe Norma Cluster Barred spiral galaxies 57532 57532 137-001 {{Spiral-galaxy-stub

History

Galaxy's fate

Gallery

See also

References

External links