SPACE — The Hubble Space Telescope captures the ‘tails’ of 12 interacting galaxies. From the Hubble image, you can see a view of a cluster of young stars shining like diamonds. Scientists compare this phenomenon to a cosmic “chain of pearls.”
When spiral galaxies interact either through direct collisions or close encounters, the galaxy’s spiral arms unravel.
The gravitational force possessed by a galaxy is very large. As a result, when two galaxies approach, the resulting gravitational tides pull on the spiral arms, pulling them out to form a long “tail”. This long tail can stretch tens of thousands of light years.
Because the spiral arms are filled with gas and dust, when the spiral arms are pulled out the gas and dust are stirred up. This mechanism, in turn, can lead to star formation storms. Therefore, tidal tails can be regions of the most intense star formation within a galaxy.
Now, astronomers led by Michael Rodruck from Randolph-Macon College in Virginia, USA have identified 425 of the young star clusters that formed. Each cluster contains about a million young blue stars that emit a lot of ultraviolet light.
By examining archival ultraviolet observations of these galaxies, Rodruck’s team was able to determine the galaxy’s star formation rate. The research data was provided by NASSA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer and Swift mission.
These star clusters have emission lines resulting from hydrogen gas being ionized by streams of ultraviolet radiation. Based on the existing spectra, Rodruck’s team was then able to calculate the ages of these clusters.
According to scientists’ calculations, these clusters are all younger than 10 million years.
“It was a surprise to see so many young objects in the tail tide,” Rodruck said in a statement.
The clusters in the tail of this tide are very massive when compared to young star clusters in the Milky Way galaxy. This star cluster is more similar to the ancient, dense globular clusters found in the Milky Way’s halo.
These findings were published last year in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
2024-02-12 03:15:00
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