Caldwell 24, NGC 1275, Perseus A A dusty spiral galaxy appears to be rotating on edge, like a pinwheel, as it slides through the larger, bright galaxy NGC 1275, in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. These images, taken with Hubbles Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), show traces of spiral structure accompanied by dramatic dust lanes and bright blue regions that mark areas of active star formation. NGC 1275 consists of two galaxies, the central CD Galaxy in the Perseus Cluster, and the so-called high velocity system (HVS) which lies in front of it. The HVS is moving at 3000 km/s towards the dominant system, and is believed to be merging with the Perseus Cluster. The HVS is not affecting the CD Galaxy as it lies at least 200 thousand light years from it. The central cluster galaxy contains a massive network of spectral line emitting filaments, which appear to be being dragged out by rising bubbles of relativistic plasma generated by the central active galactic nucleus. Long gaseous filaments made up of threads of gas stretch out beyond the galaxy, into the multimillion-degree, X-ray–emitting gas that fills the cluster. The amount of gas contained in a typical thread is approximately one million times the mass of our own Sun. They are only 200 light-years wide, are often very straight, and extend for up to 20,000 light-years. The existence of the filaments poses a problem. As they are much cooler than the surrounding intergalactic cloud, how have they persisted for perhaps 100 million years? Why haven’t they warmed, dissipated or collapsed to form stars? One possibility is that weak magnetic fields (about one-ten-thousandth the strength of Earth’s field) exert enough force on the ions within the threads to keep them together Credit: NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA)
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 09:01:40 +0000
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