Tour of ESO 137
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Two spectacular tails of X-ray emission have been seen trailing behind a galaxy known as ESO 137. This composite image shows X-rays from Chandra in blue, optical emission in yellow and emission from hydrogen light in red. The X-ray tails were created when cool gas from the galaxy (with a temperature of about ten degrees above absolute zero) was stripped by hot gas of about 100 million degrees as it travels through the center of the galaxy cluster. The stripping of this cool gas could be leading to new stars being formed in the tails behind the galaxy. This would be the first time such a thing had ever been seen.
[Runtime: 00:43]
Quicktime MPEG
Two spectacular tails of X-ray emission have been seen trailing behind a galaxy known as ESO 137. This composite image shows X-rays from Chandra in blue, optical emission in yellow and emission from hydrogen light in red. The X-ray tails were created when cool gas from the galaxy (with a temperature of about ten degrees above absolute zero) was stripped by hot gas of about 100 million degrees as it travels through the center of the galaxy cluster. The stripping of this cool gas could be leading to new stars being formed in the tails behind the galaxy. This would be the first time such a thing had ever been seen.
[Runtime: 00:43]
(Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UVa/M. Sun, et al; H-alpha/Optical: SOAR (UVa/NOAO/UNC/CNPq-Brazil)/M.Sun et al.)
Return to ESO 137 (January 21, 2010)
Revised: September 13, 2012