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“Vampire” Galaxy Sucks Star-Forming Gas from its Neighbors
The spiral galaxy NGC 6946 and its smaller companions are found to be surrounded by “cold flows” of hydrogen gas
What happens when a galaxy doesn’t have enough hydrogen gas to support its stellar production process? Why, it sucks it from its hapless neighbors like some sort of enormous cosmic vampire, that’s what. And evidence of this predatory process is what’s recently been observed by the National Science Foundation’s Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia, in the form of faint “cold flows” bridging intergalactic space between the galaxy NGC 6946 and its smaller companions.
“We knew that the fuel for star formation had to come from somewhere,” said astronomer D.J. Pisano from West Virginia University, author of the study. ”So far, however, we’ve detected only about 10 percent of what would be necessary to explain what we observe in many galaxies. A leading theory is that rivers of hydrogen – known as cold flows – may be ferrying hydrogen through intergalactic space, clandestinely fueling star formation. But this tenuous hydrogen has been simply too diffuse to detect, until now.”
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Read the rest of “Vampire” Galaxy Sucks Star-Forming Gas from its Neighbors (352 words)
© Jason Major for Universe Today, 2014. |
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Post tags: cold flows, Fireworks galaxy, galaxy, GBT, hydrogen Pisano, NGC 6946, NRAO, Radio Astronomy, vampire
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Source: http://www.universetoday.com/108696/vampire-galaxy-sucks-star-forming-gas-from-its-neighbors/
