Astronomers have retained one of the most detailed sets of observations ever captured from the Galaxy Cluster 700 million light years in the weak glow of stray stars in the process of tearing from their home galaxy and absorbed into another. The “bridge” of the scattered light – bridge about a million light -years between two galaxies in the Abell 3667 cluster – is the first direct evidence that the two brightest galaxies in the cluster are actively connecting.
The findings also indicate that scientists say that Abell 3667 was formed from two smaller clusters that were about a billion years ago.
“This is the first time that the features of this scale and size have been found in the local Galaxy cluster,” said Anthony Englert, Ph.D. Brown University candidate and head of the study describing findings. “We knew it was possible that a bridge like this would be to form between two galaxies, but not before it was not documented. It was a huge surprise that we could imagine such a weak feature.”
The new paintings ABELL 3667 were created using a dark energy camera (Decam) mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco telescope in the inter-American Cerro Tololo in Chile. Englert and two colleagues-DELL’ANTONIO, a professor of physics in Brown, and Mireia Montes, a research worker of the Institute of Space Sciences in Barcelona, Spain-sewed a record 28 hours of Observations of the years of years Decam. Findings are published in Astrophysical magazine.
“Because Blanco has displayed with Decam over the last decade, there are a lot of archive data available,” Englert said. “It was just a happy coincidence that so many people have shown Abell 3667 over the years, and we were able to put all these observations together.”
This extensive observation time is what allowed to display muted light of stray stars in the cluster. This type of diffusion light, known as Intracluster Light or ICL, offers cash register information about the history of ABELL 3667 and gravitational dancing of galaxies in it.
ICL depicted by Englert and his colleagues revealed a special type of galactic fusion, which takes place in ABELL 3667. Normally called Englert, merger that includes the largest cluster galaxy, called the brightest cluster galaxy or BCG, gradually occur because stars from many smaller galaxies from many smaller galaxies. However, this new research shows something else in this case. In fact, ABELL 3667 is made of two Galaxy clusters, each with its own BCG that now connects together. The ICL bridge discovered by scientists suggests that a larger BCG steals stars from a smaller – an event known as fast or aggressive merger. Both BCG combine, as well as smaller galaxies that surround them, so Abell 3667 is the product of two clusters merger. The data from the observation of the X -ray and radio frequency has suggested a quick fusion in Abell 3667, but this is the first optical evidence to back up.
The appearance of intracluster light in these new images offers an exciting view of what comes when the vera C Observatory becomes a fully functional end of this year or the beginning of the next. The use of the binoculars twice the size of Blanca and the largest camera ever built will be carried out by the gum by a 10 -year -old scan deep into the entire southern sky, a project called Legacy Survey of Space and Time.
“Rubin will be able to display ICL in almost the same way as we are here, but it will do it for every local Galaxy cluster in the southern sky,” Englert said. “What we have done is just a small source of what Rubin will be able to do. It really throws the ICL study wide open.”
This will be scientific bonanza for astronomers and astrophysics. In addition to revealing the history of the Galaxy clusters, ICL keeps traces of some of the most basic secrets of the universe, especially dark matter – mysterious, invisible things that are assumed to match most of the universe mass.
“ICL is quite important for cosmology,” Dell’antonio said. “The distribution of this light should reflect the distribution of dark matter, so it provides an indirect way to” see “the dark matter.”
Seeing uncommon – this is a powerful telescope.
Victor M. Blanco Binoculars and Ora C Observatory are operated by Noirlab, the American National Center for Ground, Night Optical Astronomy operated by a National Science Foundation. The research was financed by the NSF (AST-21108287), the Ministry of Energy of the US (De-SC-0010010) and the Consortium of the Grant’s Space Grant NASA Rhode Island.
The details of the picture
- Jellyfish galaxy Jo171
Like the iconic Hoag object, the Jo171 is an example of an annular galaxy characterized by a completely separate ring of young stars surrounding the central old sphere. Jo171’s Fall in the thick clump of Galaxy Abel 3667 deprives it of gas and creates significant tendrines of similar jellyfish that appear on one side of the galaxy. Analysis of the star population of the galaxy and its gas and star star dynamics dynamics shows that the origin of the ring has been related to the interaction with another galaxy in the distant past, before its growth to Abell 3667, since it has recently flown into a cluster. This is the first observed case of a RAM-tab-on in action in the ring galaxy. Both events (increasing and stripping) caused dramatic transformations in this galaxy. - Galaxy Leda 64246 jellyfish
Leda 64246 is another example of enlarged galaxies of RAM galaxies. Their blue glow suggests that striping has caused the formation of stars on the trails. - The brightest cluster galaxy IC 4965 and infalling group
The central galaxy in this cutout is referred to as the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG). BCGS’s work has been an astronomical secret for decades. The secret was partially answered by the detection of intracluster light, which provides evidence that BCG is generally formed by gradual streaming of stars from less massive galaxies in the cluster, which are then growing to BCG. - NGC 6862
The NGC 6862 is a Seyfert galaxy, which is partially covered with the Cirrem of the Milky Way or the integrated nebula flow.
