This colossal 'ball of fire' is by far the largest object of this kind ever identified. The gas ball is about three million light years across, or about five thousand million times the size of our solar system. It appears from our perspective as a circular X-ray glow with a comet-like tail nearly half the size of the moon.
"The size and velocity of this gas ball is truly fantastic," said Dr Alexis Finoguenov, adjunct assistant professor of physics in the Department of Physics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), and an associated scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Extra-Terrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany. "This is likely a massive building block being delivered to one of the largest assembly of galaxies we know."
The gas ball is in a galaxy cluster called Abell 3266, millions of light years from Earth, thus posing absolutely no danger to our solar system. Abell 3266 contains hundreds of galaxies and great amounts of hot gas that is nearly a hundred million degrees. Both the cluster gas and the giant gas ball are held together by the gravitational attraction of unseen dark matter.
"What interests astronomers is not just the size of the gas ball but the role it plays in the formation and evolution of structure in the universe," said Dr Francesco Miniati, who worked on this data at UMBC while visiting from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland.
Abell cluster 3266 is part of the Horologium-Reticulum super-cluster and is one of the most massive galaxy clusters in the southern sky. It is still actively growing in size, as indicated by the gas ball, and will become one of the largest mass concentrations in the nearby universe.
Using XMM-Newton data, the science team produced an entropy map (entropy is a thermodynamical property that provides a measure of disorder). The map allows for the separation of the cold and dense gas of the comet from the hotter and more rarefied gas of the cluster. This is based on X-ray spectra. The data show with remarkable detail the process of gas being stripped from the comet's core and forming a large tail containing lumps of colder and denser gas. The researchers estimate that a sun's worth of mass is lost every hour.
"In Abell 3266 we are seeing structure formation in action," said Prof. Mark Henriksen (UMBC), co-author of the results. "Dark matter is the gravitational glue holding the gas ball together. But as it races through the galaxy cluster, a tug-of-war ensues where the galaxy cluster eventually wins, stripping off and dispersing gas that perhaps one day will seed star and galaxy growth within the cluster."
Source: European Space Agency
Related stories:
Stars too old to be trusted? A possible Stellar Solution to the Cosmological Lithium Problem
Analysing a set of stars in a globular cluster with ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers may have found the solution to a critical cosmological and stellar riddle. Until now, an embarrassing question was why the abundance of lithium produced in the Big Bang is a factor 2 to 3 times higher than the value measured in the atmospheres of old stars. The answer, the researchers say, lies in the fact that the abundances of elements measured in a star's atmosphere decrease with time.
Jupiter's rocky core bigger and icier, according to new simulation
(PhysOrg.com) -- Jupiter has a rocky core that is more than twice as large as previously thought, according to computer calculations by a University of California, Berkeley, geophysicist who simulated conditions inside the planet on the scale of individual hydrogen and helium atoms. The results were published Nov. 20 in
Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Meteorite search update: 10-ton rock responsible for fireball in Western Canada last week
Investigation of the fireball that lit up the skies of Alberta and Saskatchewan on November 20 has determined that an asteroid fragment weighing approximately 10 tonnes entered the Earth's atmosphere over the prairie provinces last Thursday evening. And University of Calgary researcher Alan Hildebrand has outlined a region in western Saskatchewan where chunks of the desk-sized space rock are expected to be found.
Hubble captures outstanding views of mammoth stars
(PhysOrg.com) -- The image shows a pair of colossal stars, WR 25 and Tr16-244, located within the open cluster Trumpler 16. This cluster is embedded within the Carina Nebula, an immense cauldron of gas and dust that lies approximately 7500 light-years from Earth. The Carina Nebula contains several ultra-hot stars, including these two star systems and the famous blue star Eta Carinae, which has the highest luminosity yet confirmed.
Putting an end to turbulence
When a flow reaches a certain speed, things get turbulent: The fluid or the gas no longer flows in an orderly fashion but whirls around wildly. However, in contrast to what researchers assumed until now, this state is not permanent. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen, Germany, and the Technical University in Delft, Netherlands, have shown that in pipe flows, all turbulence will disappear with time. The new measurements are significantly more precise than all previous experiments and computer simulations concerned with this question. (
Physical Review Letters, November 21st 2008)
Hubble Resolves Puzzle about Loner Starburst Galaxy
(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have long puzzled over why a small, nearby, isolated galaxy is pumping out new stars faster than any galaxy in our local neighborhood.
Nissan Cuts In Half Amount of Precious Metals Required in Catalysts
(PhysOrg.com) -- Nissan Motor Company Inc. has announced a new ultra-low precious metal catalyst that will cut in half the amount of precious metals used by car manufacturers. The new catalyst will be introduced in the new "Cube" compact car that will be announced on November 19, 2008. According to Motohiko Hamada, Nikkei Automotive Technology, the new ultra-low precious metal catalyst which purifies exhaust gas is the first in the world.
Searching for primordial antimatter
Scientists are on the hunt for evidence of antimatter - matter's arch nemesis – left over from the very early Universe. New results using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Compton Gamma Ray Observatory suggest the search may have just become even more difficult.
