The Hubble Space Telescope has captured an incredible image of a jellyfish galaxy, JO175, hanging suspended in the constellation Telescopium, over 650 million light-years from Earth.
The galaxy's tendrils of star-forming gas and dust give it its peculiar name, as they trail behind it like the tentacles of a jellyfish.
Starry Tendrils
The striking appearance of jellyfish galaxies comes from the clumps of star formation contained within their bright tendrils.
Unlike their oceanic counterparts, jellyfish galaxies inhabit galaxy clusters where the pressure of the superheated plasma draws out their distinctive tendrils.
Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 captured a stunning image of JO175, which also shows a handful of distant galaxies scattered throughout the scene and a bright four-pointed star on the lower right side.
In its recent study of jellyfish clusters, Hubble focused on the star-forming clumps of gas and dust that adorn their tendrils. By examining the birth and destiny of stars in these clumps, astronomers aim to gain a better understanding of the processes that drive star formation in other parts of the universe.
One of the key features of jellyfish galaxies is their distinctive "tentacles" or "tails" of gas and stars that appear to be trailing behind the galaxy.
These tentacles are thought to be caused by the galaxy's high-speed motion through a dense region of gas and dust, such as a galaxy cluster or group, where the galaxy's interstellar medium is stripped away by strong gravitational and tidal forces.
These tentacles can extend for tens or even hundreds of thousands of light-years behind the galaxy and often show evidence of ongoing star formation.
This indicates that the stripped gas and dust are still able to support the formation of new stars, even as it is being stripped away from the galaxy.
Jellyfish galaxies are of great interest to astronomers because they offer a unique opportunity to study the interplay between galaxies and their environment and to understand how galaxies evolve over time.
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Workings of the Universe
By studying the properties of the gas and stars in the tentacles of these galaxies, astronomers can learn about the mechanisms that drive the stripping of gas and dust from galaxies and the processes that allow stripped gas and dust to continue to form stars.
They can also learn about the structure and dynamics of the intergalactic medium and the ways in which it affects the evolution of galaxies.
The image of JO175 captured by Hubble is not only visually stunning but also offers important insights into the workings of the universe.
The study of jellyfish galaxies and their star-forming tendrils is just one example of the incredible discoveries being made by space telescopes such as Hubble, and the potential for further revelations is truly exciting.
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