Observing the universe brings more and more surprises. Thanks to more modern instruments, astronomers can now see things that were previously hidden to them. They were recently surprised by a nearby galaxy, which turned out to be actually two clusters of stars.
New observations of the Small Magellanic Cloud, or Small Magellanic Cloud, have revealed a surprising secret. Until now, astronomers thought they knew this nearby galaxy, which is gravitationally bound to the Milky Way.
However, it now appears that it could actually be two galaxies masquerading as one. Specifically, one is apparently hidden behind the other, writes the website Space.com. From our point of view, they are in perfect cover. The closer one is 199,000 light-years away from us, the other about 215,000 light-years away. So they are separated by about 16 thousand light years.
The discovery was made by a team led by astronomer Claire Murray of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland, which tracked the movement of gas clouds and young stars being born around the Small Magellanic Cloud. They found that the small galaxy contains two distinct stellar nurseries thousands of light-years apart. The research has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal and is currently available online Cornell University.
Both the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Large Magellanic Cloud are dwarf galaxies that are gravitationally bound to the Milky Way and are constantly being pulled towards our galaxy. In the distant future, scientists expect collisions and mergers of galaxies.
New name
The new discovery comes at a time when there is speculation about renaming both the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds. The galaxies are named after the Portuguese navigator Fernão de Magalhães, whose expedition in the 16th century brought proof of the Earth’s roundness. But he has nothing to do with the discovery of galaxies, and critics draw attention to his behavior towards the original inhabitants of the places he discovered.
Watch an animation of what a collision between the Milky Way and the Great Nebula would look like (10/2014):
TN.cz
2024-01-06 04:55:00
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