A spectacular jellyfish galaxy, JO206, has been captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in this stunning image. The galaxy showcases a colorful star-forming disk encompassed by a pale, luminous dust cloud. Hovering over JO206 are a few foreground bright stars with crisscross diffraction spikes that stand out against an inky black backdrop at the bottom of the image. The constellation Aquarius plays host to JO206, which is situated more than 700 million light-years away from Earth.
The name jellyfish galaxy is derived from the galaxy’s striking similarity to aquatic jellyfish. The long tendrils of star formation that trail the JO206 galaxy’s disk, visible in the bottom right corner of the image, resembles the tentacles of a jellyfish. The tendrils of jellyfish galaxies are created by the interaction between galaxies and the intra-cluster medium, which is a thin superheated plasma that covers the galaxy clusters. When galaxies traverse through galaxy clusters, they collide with the intracluster medium, which draws out gas from the galaxies and transforms it into the long tendrils of star formation.
Astronomers are given a unique opportunity to study star formation under extreme conditions in the tentacles of jellyfish galaxies, far from the galaxy’s primary disk. To their surprise, scientists discovered that there are no significant variations between star formation in the disks of jellyfish galaxies and star formation in their tendrils, suggesting that factors of the galaxy’s early environment have only a minor influence on star formation.
Citation: Image: Hubble observes jellyfish galaxy JO206 (2023, June 9) retrieved 10 June 2023 from https://phys.org/news/2023-06-image-hubble-jellyfish-galaxy-jo206.html
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