Skip to main content

Survival at the Edge of the Galaxy: NASA's Hubble Reveals the LMC's Struggle for Existence.

Image
By Surendra Uikey

 

This artist's concept illustrates the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) as it passes through the Milky Way's gaseous halo, with most of the LMC's gas blown away, leaving behind a compact remnant. Using light from 28 quasars, scientists studied the halo by observing how the gas absorbs the quasars' light, as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.


A gripping tale of survival is unfolding in the far reaches of our galaxy, as NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captures a remarkable chapter in the story of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a dwarf galaxy that orbits our Milky Way. Located at the outer edges of our cosmic neighborhood, the LMC is one of the Milky Way's closest companions and can be seen in the southern night sky, appearing 20 times the size of the full Moon.


Many astronomers believe the LMC is not bound in orbit around the Milky Way, but rather passing through its gravitational influence. After completing its closest approach to the Milky Way, the LMC has experienced a catastrophic event: most of its gaseous halo, which once surrounded it, has been swept away.


For the first time, scientists have been able to measure the size of the LMC's halo, thanks to Hubble's unprecedented observations. In a new study to be published in *The Astrophysical Journal Letters*, researchers were surprised to find the halo is remarkably small—just 50,000 light-years across. This is about 10 times smaller than halos around other galaxies of similar mass. The compact size of the halo provides evidence of a violent interaction with the Milky Way, marking the LMC's survival against tremendous odds.


A Survivor Against the Odds.


"The LMC is a survivor," said Andrew Fox, principal investigator for the study and a scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, which is part of the European Space Agency's (ESA) collaboration with NASA. "Though it's lost much of its gas, it still retains enough to continue forming new stars, ensuring that star-forming regions are still active. A smaller galaxy wouldn't have been able to endure this interaction—there would be no gas left, just aging stars."


Despite suffering substantial gas loss, the LMC remains a relatively hefty galaxy, retaining a compact gas halo that has allowed it to endure. The LMC's mass is about 10 percent of the Milky Way's, which is larger than most dwarf galaxies. Its survival is due in part to its mass, which enabled it to hold onto a portion of its gas despite the Milky Way’s overwhelming gravitational influence.


A Cosmic Blowdryer.


This artist's concept illustrates the Large Magellanic Cloud's (LMC's) encounter with the Milky Way galaxy's gaseous halo. In the top panel, at the middle of the right side, the LMC begins crashing through our galaxy's much more massive halo. The bright purple bow shock represents the leading edge of the LMC's halo, which is being compressed as the Milky Way's halo pushes back against the incoming LMC. In the middle panel, part of the halo is being stripped and blown back into a streaming tail of gas that eventually will rain into the Milky Way. The bottom panel shows the progression of this interaction, as the LMC's comet-like tail becomes more defined. A compact LMC halo remains. Because the LMC is just past its closest approach to the Milky Way and is moving outward into deep space again, scientists do not expect the residual halo will be lost.


The loss of gas from the LMC is attributed to a phenomenon known as ram-pressure stripping. As the LMC moves through the Milky Way's dense environment, the galaxy's gas is pushed away, leaving a trailing wake much like a comet's tail.


"I like to think of the Milky Way as a giant hairdryer," said Fox. "As the LMC moves through, the Milky Way blows the gas off, stripping away most of the galaxy's original halo. What remains is a small, compact remnant."


The stripped gas is not gone forever; it will eventually be drawn into the Milky Way's gravitational field, slowly falling into our galaxy. However, since the LMC is now moving away from the Milky Way after its closest encounter, scientists do not anticipate the complete loss of the halo.


Hubble to the Rescue.


This breakthrough study was made possible only through the unique capabilities of Hubble. The telescope was able to observe ultraviolet light, a wavelength that is blocked by Earth's atmosphere and cannot be detected from the ground. Using Hubble's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), researchers analyzed the absorption patterns of ultraviolet light from 28 distant quasars—bright, active galactic nuclei powered by supermassive black holes. As their light passes through the gas in the LMC's halo, the gas absorbs certain wavelengths, allowing astronomers to measure the gas's composition, velocity, and size.


Unlocking the Secrets of Galactic Collisions.


The LMC, with its proximity and mass, serves as a valuable astrophysical laboratory. Studying how it interacts with the Milky Way helps scientists understand galactic evolution, particularly the processes that occurred in the early universe when galaxies were much closer together. The complex, sometimes chaotic nature of galaxy interactions is something researchers are only beginning to fully comprehend.


Looking ahead, the research team plans to investigate the front side of the LMC’s halo, an area that has yet to be explored. "We will focus on five sightlines where the halos of the LMC and Milky Way collide," said co-author Scott Lucchini from the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "This is where the gas is compressed, similar to two balloons pushing against each other."


The Future of Hubble.


For over three decades, the Hubble Space Telescope has been at the forefront of space exploration, making discoveries that continue to expand our understanding of the universe. Despite its age, Hubble remains a critical tool for astronomers, and with this new study, it has once again revealed the mysteries of galactic evolution.


The Hubble Space Telescope is a collaborative mission between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope, with support from Lockheed Martin Space and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. Through international cooperation, Hubble continues to shape the future of astrophysics and the study of our universe.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Post

In the triple-star system, KOI-5Ab is seen orbiting the primary star...

By Surendra Uikey
  KOI-5Ab continues to be a topic of discussion for researchers, as koi-5Ab has been seen orbiting the primary Star, confirming it has also been announced.  koi-5ab revolves around the primary star, it was thought to be a planet half the size of Saturn in a planetary system, and was the only other planet candidate to be detected by the KOI-5Ab mission. Kepler mission operations were initiated by NASA in 2009, by the end of spacecraft operations in 2018, the Kepler spacecraft had discovered 2,394 exoplanets, or planets orbiting stars beyond our sun, and about 2,366 exoplanets such  There are also those, which are still to be confirmed. David Ciardi, chief scientist at NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute, says the KOI-5AB was abandoned, because it was complicated, and we had thousands of candidates, and we were learning something new every day from Kepler, so that the KOI  Mostly forgot to -5. KOI-5Ab is part of the Triple Star system, where KOI-5 is a group of three st...
Post a Comment
Read more

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope will be closed.

By Surendra Uikey
NASA briefly informed that the Spitzer Space Telescope will be permanently discontinued on January 30, 2020. After about 16 years of discovering the universe in light energy.  And by that time, the space shuttle has been working for more than 11 years beyond its prime mission, Spitzer examines the universe's various objects in infrared light.  It was in 2003 through the rocket that the American Space Research Organization NASA entered the space and entered the orbit around the Earth.  Spitzer rotates the sun on a path similar to that of the Earth but it runs a bit slower.  Today it is about 158 ​​million miles (254 million kilometers) away from our planet - more than 600 times the distance between Earth and Moon.  The spacing of Spitzer's orbit curve means that when the spacecraft indicates its fixed antenna on the earth to download data or receive commands, its solar panels tend to lean away from the sun.  During those periods, to operate the space shut...
Post a Comment
Read more

SpaceX is launching its next dragon spacecraft.

By Surendra Uikey
SpaceX is preparing for its next mission, very soon Spacex will launch the Dragon Spacecraft with its Falcon 9 Rocket.   SpaceX is the 18th commercial reproduction service mission, dragon spacecraft will be loaded with dozens of experiments made in space.  Launch date: Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 7:35 pm  International Space Station (ISS) us  The National Laboratory SpaceX's dragon is giving a finalization to more than two dozen payloads for launch in a circular circular laboratory.  Many of these payloads are aimed at improving human health on the earth, many of which are focused on drug development.  In addition, a series of payloads from identified private sector partners will be launched on this mission.  More than 40 student experiments and demonstrations have been included on the 18th Commercial Recepti Services Mission (CRS-18) of SpaceX.  One part of ISS American National Laboratory's goal is to encourage and engage next generation scientists.                          ...
Post a Comment
Read more

NASA's review of the flight design of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope successfully confirmed.

By Surendra Uikey
Critical design work for the NASA Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has been completed, and the design analysis has also been successfully completed, indicating that all design and developmental engineering work is now complete.  The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is being managed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, along with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science stream consisting of various scientists  team is involved. After an analysis of extensive hardware testing and sophisticated modeling, an independent review panel confirms that the observatory we used, said Julie McEnery, senior project scientist for the Roman Space Telescope at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Ready, it will work. Julie McNairy says of the Roman Space Telescope, what we know, what it will look like, and what it is capable of doing, and now th...
Post a Comment
Read more

SpaceX,Dragon Cargo Returns Mission in Pacific ends with SplashDown

By Surendra Uikey
                                                                                                                                                        SpaceX dragon cargo spaceship dropped at 5:48 pm in the Pacific Ocean.  The EDT (2:48 p.m. PDT) is located approximately 202 miles southwest of Long Beach, California, which is located at the end of the company's 17th contracted Cargo Resipulli mission for NASA.  Spacecraft returned more than 4,200 pounds for other valuable scientific uses. Some scientific investigations of Dragon's return to Earth include: Overview of protein crystals growth, in the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A cluster of three galaxies was imaged with the help of the Hubble telescope's camera.

By Surendra Uikey
Using the Hubble Telescope's Advanced Camera (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), a cluster of three galaxies was imaged.  As shown in the image, the two galaxies have merged, scientists say, just as the two galaxies in the upper right appear to be interacting with each other, it is, in fact, stars.  Its long trails and the gas spreading from both of them gives the impression that these two have just collided with each other very fast.  In the lower left of the image is the bowling-ball-sized galaxy. Scientists say that the interaction between two galaxies occurs over a long time period, however, rarely will the galaxies collide with each other.  These galaxies are so close to each other in space that they form a cluster, which scientists have named NGC 7764A.  The mass between these galaxies has caused the formation of a shape at the end that, from the point of view of our solar system, resembles the starship known as the USS Enterprise from Star Trek. This gr...
Post a Comment
Read more