jbet777/astronomy

Hubble sees galaxies blowing in the wind
Last Updated: Wednesday, September 30, 2009




From the page: "Newly released images from the Hubble Space Telescope show two galaxies that are moving so fast that gas within the galaxies is being stripped away.

[...]

Because the space within the cluster isn't empty, but filled with a very thin mixture of gases called the intracluster medium, the galaxy's movement is creating drag, in the same way that a rider on a speeding motorcycle will feel wind, even on a calm day.

The drag, or ram pressure, is stripping gases out of the galaxy, leaving a ghostly shadow behind. The Hubble images show new stars forming in bright blue clusters in the cloud of gas being left behind the galaxy."

Swift Makes Best-ever Ultraviolet Portrait Of Andromeda Galaxy
ScienceDaily
(Sep. 17, 2009)



From the page: "In a break from its usual task of searching for distant cosmic explosions, NASA's Swift satellite has acquired the highest-resolution view of a neighboring spiral galaxy ever attained in the ultraviolet. The galaxy, known as M31 in the constellation Andromeda, is the largest and closest spiral galaxy to our own."

From the page: "The European telescope sent far from Earth to study the oldest light in the Universe has returned its first images."