Hubble Discovers new "Life" in an Ancient Galaxy
November 18, 2010
Elliptical galaxies were thought to be aging star cities whose star-making heyday was a billion years ago. But NASA’s Hubble Space telescope, has helped prove that elliptical galaxies still have some “youth” in the, thanks to an encounter with small galaxies. Images of the core of NGC 4150, taken in near-ultraviolet light with the sharp-eyed Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), have helped reveal streams of gas, dust, and clumps of new born blue stars that are less than a billion years old. The evidence is shown, that the star birth was activated due to a merge with a dwarf galaxy.
This new study, has helped to create the belief that maybe, in all elliptical galaxies, there might still be young life, in order to bring old elliptical galaxies their life back.
"Elliptical galaxies were thought to have made all of their stars billions of years ago," says astronomer Mark Crockett of the University of Oxford, leader of the Hubble observations. "They had consumed all their gas to make new stars. Now we are finding evidence of star birth in many elliptical galaxies, fueled mostly by cannibalizing smaller galaxies.
The Hubble images reveal turbulent activity inside the galaxies core. The young blue stars, create a ring around the center that is rotating with the galaxy. The stellar-breeding ground is about 1,300 years-light across. Long strands of dust are seen against the yellowish color of the core, which is composed by older stars. From a Hubble analysis, of the stars colors, Crockett and his team measured that the star-formation boom started about a billion years ago, which is a relatively recent event in cosmological science. The star making has slowly stopped since then.
"We are seeing this galaxy after the major starburst has occurred," explains team member Joseph Silk of the University of Oxford. "The most massive stars are already gone. The youngest stars are between 50 million and 300 to 400 million years old. By comparison, most of the stars in the galaxy are around 10 billion years old."
The encounter that triggered the star birth would have been similar to our own Milky Way galaxy, swallowing whole the nearby Large Magellanic cloud.
For every major encounter, there are probably up to 10 times more frequent clashes between a large and a small galaxy. Major collisions are easier to see because they create fireworks: galaxies, long streamers of gas, and dozens of young star clusters. Smaller interactions are harder to detect because they leave relatively little trace.
Crockett and his team selected NGC 4150 for their Hubble study because a ground-based spectroscopic analysis gave tantalizing hints that the galaxy's core was not a quiet place. The astronomers hope to study other elliptical galaxies in the SAURON survey to look for the signposts of new star birth. The team's results have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.“The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, D.C”.
This article interested me, because when I was away in summer, I saw this IMAX video in a museum, about how galaxies were formed, and how about stars. Then another day, I saw another video talking about the repairs over the years made in the Hubble Space Telescope, and how astronauts were trained to do this task. I also think this interested me, because of the name, when I saw it i said I had to read it, because I thought it was like life, live something that lived, but when I clicked on it, it was about how galaxies that were billions of years old still had young stars. For me, reading all of these articles found in the NASA web page, is really important, because I aspire to become part of NASA when I grow up, and knowing about this things that are happening in the program now, has to be important somehow. I think that it is also important that we know about this things, because we are all very closed minded, and we only think of what we know and what is a fact, most of the time we like to stick with things that we know. Some people just like to know what they know and don’t try to strive for higher knowledge. I on the other hand, I always want to know more, and be more aware of what is going on in the world, because I think it is very important to know what is going on around us, even though its billions of years from Earth.
This new study, has helped to create the belief that maybe, in all elliptical galaxies, there might still be young life, in order to bring old elliptical galaxies their life back.
"Elliptical galaxies were thought to have made all of their stars billions of years ago," says astronomer Mark Crockett of the University of Oxford, leader of the Hubble observations. "They had consumed all their gas to make new stars. Now we are finding evidence of star birth in many elliptical galaxies, fueled mostly by cannibalizing smaller galaxies.
The Hubble images reveal turbulent activity inside the galaxies core. The young blue stars, create a ring around the center that is rotating with the galaxy. The stellar-breeding ground is about 1,300 years-light across. Long strands of dust are seen against the yellowish color of the core, which is composed by older stars. From a Hubble analysis, of the stars colors, Crockett and his team measured that the star-formation boom started about a billion years ago, which is a relatively recent event in cosmological science. The star making has slowly stopped since then.
"We are seeing this galaxy after the major starburst has occurred," explains team member Joseph Silk of the University of Oxford. "The most massive stars are already gone. The youngest stars are between 50 million and 300 to 400 million years old. By comparison, most of the stars in the galaxy are around 10 billion years old."
The encounter that triggered the star birth would have been similar to our own Milky Way galaxy, swallowing whole the nearby Large Magellanic cloud.
For every major encounter, there are probably up to 10 times more frequent clashes between a large and a small galaxy. Major collisions are easier to see because they create fireworks: galaxies, long streamers of gas, and dozens of young star clusters. Smaller interactions are harder to detect because they leave relatively little trace.
Crockett and his team selected NGC 4150 for their Hubble study because a ground-based spectroscopic analysis gave tantalizing hints that the galaxy's core was not a quiet place. The astronomers hope to study other elliptical galaxies in the SAURON survey to look for the signposts of new star birth. The team's results have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.“The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, D.C”.
This article interested me, because when I was away in summer, I saw this IMAX video in a museum, about how galaxies were formed, and how about stars. Then another day, I saw another video talking about the repairs over the years made in the Hubble Space Telescope, and how astronauts were trained to do this task. I also think this interested me, because of the name, when I saw it i said I had to read it, because I thought it was like life, live something that lived, but when I clicked on it, it was about how galaxies that were billions of years old still had young stars. For me, reading all of these articles found in the NASA web page, is really important, because I aspire to become part of NASA when I grow up, and knowing about this things that are happening in the program now, has to be important somehow. I think that it is also important that we know about this things, because we are all very closed minded, and we only think of what we know and what is a fact, most of the time we like to stick with things that we know. Some people just like to know what they know and don’t try to strive for higher knowledge. I on the other hand, I always want to know more, and be more aware of what is going on in the world, because I think it is very important to know what is going on around us, even though its billions of years from Earth.
