07-04-2019, 06:19 PM
"Spiraling Filaments Feed Young Galaxies"
It's always been a bit of a mystery as to how young galaxies that we seem forming billions of years ago have such a high rate of star formation. A lot of gas is needed to create the stars and the galaxies on their own cannot provide enough material to sustain such a high rate of star formation. However, recent observations using the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea show that these galaxies receive this material from cold gas streaming into them from the inter-galactic medium.
http://www.keckobservatory.org/spiraling-gas/
"Galaxies grow by accumulating gas from their surroundings and converting it to stars, but the details of this process have remained murky. New observations, made using the Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI) at W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, now provide the clearest, most direct evidence yet that filaments of cool gas spiral into young galaxies, supplying the fuel for stars.
“For the first time, we are seeing filaments of gas directly spiral into a galaxy. It’s like a pipeline going straight in,” says Christopher Martin, a professor of physics at Caltech and lead author of a new paper appearing in the July 1 issue of the journal Nature Astronomy. “This pipeline of gas sustains star formation, explaining how galaxies can make stars on very fast timescales.”"
It's always been a bit of a mystery as to how young galaxies that we seem forming billions of years ago have such a high rate of star formation. A lot of gas is needed to create the stars and the galaxies on their own cannot provide enough material to sustain such a high rate of star formation. However, recent observations using the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea show that these galaxies receive this material from cold gas streaming into them from the inter-galactic medium.
http://www.keckobservatory.org/spiraling-gas/
"Galaxies grow by accumulating gas from their surroundings and converting it to stars, but the details of this process have remained murky. New observations, made using the Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI) at W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, now provide the clearest, most direct evidence yet that filaments of cool gas spiral into young galaxies, supplying the fuel for stars.
“For the first time, we are seeing filaments of gas directly spiral into a galaxy. It’s like a pipeline going straight in,” says Christopher Martin, a professor of physics at Caltech and lead author of a new paper appearing in the July 1 issue of the journal Nature Astronomy. “This pipeline of gas sustains star formation, explaining how galaxies can make stars on very fast timescales.”"