Exhausts contaminated by Galaxies are removed by the Galaxies. Credit: James Josephides, Swinburne Astronomical Productions
Researchers have discovered that Galaxies can pollute the environment in which they live.
Alex Cameron and Deanne Fischer, astronomers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), used a new imaging device at the WM Keck Observatory in Hawaii in order to prove that what flows into a galaxies is a lot cleaner.
The Astrophysical Journal published the research today.
"Enormous clouds are pulled into galaxies and use in the process to make stars," stated Deanne Fisher, co-lead author and associate professor at Swinburne University's Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing.
It is composed of hydrogen and Helium. We were able confirm the existence of stars made of this new gas using the Keck Cosmic Web Imager. This is mainly due to supernovas.
"But this stuff doesn't look so clean. It contains lots of other elements like oxygen, carbon, iron, and others."
The important mechanism that governs the growth, mass, and size of galaxies is the process of atoms flowing into themknown as "accretion" and their eventual expulsionknown to be called "outflows".
The composition of the outward and inward flows was only known to be approximated until now. This is the first time that the complete cycle has been confirmed in another galaxy than the Milky Way.
Exhausts contaminated by Galaxies are removed by the Galaxies. Credit: James Josephides, Swinburne Astronomical Productions
The researchers looked at Mrk 1486 galaxy, which is located approximately 500 light years from Sun. It has been going through rapid star formation and was the focus of their research.
Dr. Alex Cameron, who recently moved from the University of Melbourne in Australia into the University of Oxford in the UK, stated that "we found there is a very clearly structured to how the gases enter/exit."
"Imagine that the galaxy is a spinning frisbee. The gas is relatively clean from the surrounding cosmos and condenses to create new stars. These stars explode later and push out additional gas containing these elements through the top and bottom.
Through nuclear fusion, the elements that make up more than half of the Periodic Table were created deep within the stars' cores. The stars go nova or collapsing, the elements are ejected into the Universe, where they become part of the matrix that allows for the formation of new stars, planets and asteroids.
Mrk 1486 was an ideal candidate for observation. It lies "edge-on" with Earth, which means that it could easily be viewed and its composition measured. This type of research is not possible with most galaxies.
Professor Fisher said, "This work is important to astronomers because we've been in a position to limit the forces that strongly affect how galaxies create stars."
It is one step closer to understanding why and how long galaxies look like they do.
The University of Texas at Austin, University of Maryland at College Park and University of California at San Diego are some of the other scientists who contribute to this work.
Continue reading about the evolution of metals and cosmic galaxy assembly
More information: DUVET Survey: Te-based direct metallicity mappings of metal-enriched outflows, and metal-poor flows in Mrk1486, Astrophysical Journal (2021). The DUVET Survey: Direct Te based metallicity mapping for metal-enriched outflows, and metal-poor inputs in Mrk1486, (2021). iopscience.iop.org/article/10. 847/2041-8213/ac18ca Further information about the Survey: www.deannefisher.com/duvet Journal information: Astrophysical Journal
This information was provided by ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics 3D (ASTRO 3D).
