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The “evil eye” galaxy, also known as M64, is a galaxy that casts a sinister glare across the cosmos and is surrounded by a cloud of dark dust at its periphery. This galaxy is also often referred to as the Black Eye Galaxy.
Associated with this galaxy, astronomers have discovered an outer disk of hydrogen gas that originates from a small, gas-rich galaxy devoured by M64. It’s the smaller galactic material that darkens the edges of M64.
The discovery, led by astronomer Adam Smercina of the University of Washington, has been accepted at The Astrophysical Journal Lettersand is available on the preprint server arXiv.
Gives a Picture of the Milky Way in the Future
Quoted from Science Alertthe discovery of this galaxy gives a picture of the Milky Way galaxy in the future.
Estimates of the mass and contents of the ripped satellite suggest that it is very much like the Small Magellanic Cloud, or a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way that would be squeezed into the larger mass.
According to Adam Smercina, as the leader of this discovery, there is a tidal structure that shows the final stage of radial merging.
“We estimate the mass of stars from the ancestral galaxy to be 500 million solar masses, with a metallicity [M/H] ≃ −1 – very similar to the mass and metallicity of the Small Magellanic Cloud,” he said.
“The mass of M64’s rotating outer gas disk is also comparable to the gas mass of the Small Magellanic Cloud, suggesting that the likely origin of M64’s unique rotating disk is its recent merger with a gas-rich satellite very similar to the Small Magellanic Cloud,” Smercina added.
Galaxy mergers like this are critical for the growth and evolution of galaxies. These events not only increase the mass of the galaxy but also introduce new elements and galactic interactions that enhance star formation and keep the galaxy afloat with new star generations.
In its long history of 13.6 billion years, the Milky Way has merged with other galaxies many times and we can see other galaxies in the Universe at different stages of the merger process.
Since galactic cannibalism is not uncommon, it makes sense that the strange gas on the periphery of M64 is the result of one of these events.
Previous studies, however, found some puzzling signs of recent galactic interactions, leading to suggestions that the disk of hydrogen had been sucked simply from the space around the galaxy, or from a brief encounter with another galaxy called Koma P.
However, evidence for either of these scenarios is also lacking. Therefore, Smercina and his colleagues asked Subaru’s Hyper Suprime-Cam telescope to study the space around M64, some 1.4 million light years away.
The goal is to look for signs of an outer disk origin in single stars far from the main disk of the galaxy.
Forming Stars
Their observations also revealed clear traces of galaxy mergers. They found galactic halos or dark spherical galaxies where gas and stars spread out and wrap around the spiral galaxy.
Not only that, they also found evidence of stars that were produced through the combined interaction of two galaxies.
When galaxies orbit each other, gravitational interactions create a pull that causes the stars to align.
The movement of gas also indicates that the satellite has a partially retrograde orbit around M64. This combination resulted in a dark center of dust and smudges that collided with the M64’s internal gas disk.
To prove this, researchers used data from Hubble to estimate the mass and composition of the absorbed galaxy. Research reveals that the star is about 500 million solar masses, consistent with the 300 million to one billion solar masses in a small magellanic cloud.
According to researchers, this left traces in the last billion years. “The origin of gas from the evil eye galaxy has finally been revealed after decades,” the researchers said.
Watch Video “Scientists Reveal Interesting Findings About Stars in the Milky Way Galaxy“
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2023-06-12 10:00:00
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