"This has been an ongoing mystery for years," said Kenney of the absence of young stars in elliptical galaxies, which also happen to be the largest galaxies in the universe. The faint streamers of hydrogen gas between the two galaxies were previously detected at the edges of images of both galaxies M86 and NGC4438, but it wasn't until new technologies enabled a wider, deeper view of the space between them that the connection was discovered, said astronomer Bill Keel of the University of Alabama. "These galaxies have a history," concludes Keel. The discovery underscores the growing realization that no galaxy is an island, he said. "It's no longer an isolated, stable system." It's part of a larger process of collisions, mergers and near misses. Keel said he is hoping Kenney and his colleagues will search for more telltale gas filaments between other galaxies in the Virgo cluster, where both M86 and NGC 4438 reside. M86 is the brightest galaxy in the Virgo cluster, a neighbor galaxy cluster about 50 million light-years away from our own Local Group cluster. Related Links: |
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