The spiral galaxy ESO 137-001 looks like a dandelion caught in a breeze in this new Hubble Space Telescope image.
The galaxy is zooming toward the upper right of this image, in between other galaxies in the Norma cluster located over 200 million light-years away. The road is harsh: intergalactic gas in the Norma cluster is sparse, but so hot at 180 million degrees Fahrenheit that it glows in X-rays.
The spiral plows through the seething intra-cluster gas so rapidly – at nearly 4.5 million miles per hour – much of its own gas is caught and torn away. Astronomers call this "ram pressure stripping." The galaxy's stars remain intact due to the binding force of their gravity.
Tattered threads of gas, the blue jellyfish-tendrils sported by ESO 137-001 in the image, illustrate the process. Ram pressure has strung this gas away from its home in the spiral galaxy and out over intergalactic space. Once there, these strips of gas have erupted with young, massive stars, which are pumping out light in vivid blues and ultraviolet.
The brown, smoky region near the center of the spiral is being pushed in a similar manner, although in this case it is small dust particles, and not gas, that are being dragged backwards by the intra-cluster medium.
From a star-forming perspective, ESO 137-001 really is spreading its seeds into space like a dandelion in the wind. The stripped gas is now forming stars. However, the galaxy, drained of its own star-forming fuel, will have trouble making stars in the future. Through studying this runaway spiral, and other galaxies like it, astronomers hope to gain a better understanding of how galaxies form stars and evolve over time.
The image, obtained through Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3, is also decorated with hundreds of stars from within the Milky Way. Though not connected in the slightest to ESO 137-001, these stars and the two reddish elliptical galaxies contribute to a vibrant celestial vista.
Credits
NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA);Acknowledgment: M. Sun (University of Alabama, Huntsville)
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | ESO 137-001 |
| Object Description | Spiral Galaxy |
| R.A. Position | 16h 13m 27.3s |
| Dec. Position | -60° 45' 50.59" |
| Constellation | Triangulum |
| Distance | 220 million light-years (67,000 parsecs) |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The Hubble data are from proposal: M. Sun (University of Alabama, Huntsville), M. Donahue and M. Voit (Michigan State University), and C. Jones and W. Forman (Smithsonian Institution Astrophysical Observatory). |
| Instrument | HST>ACS/WFC and HST>WFC3/UVIS |
| Exposure Dates | August 2, 2009, Exposure Time: 4.3 hours |
| Filters | ACS/WFC: F475W (g) and F814W (I) WFC3/UVIS: F275W (U) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | This composite image includes exposures acquired by the ACS and WFC3 instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope. Several filters were used to sample broad wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Lt blue: F275W (U) Cyan: F475W (g) Orange: F814W (I) |
| Compass Image |  |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
