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    Virgo cluster tagged posts

    Galaxy Orbits in the Local Supercluster

    December 12, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Our home Milky Way galaxy (MW, yellow) and our companion Andromeda galaxy (M31, red) are participating in a downward flow away from a vast underdense region called the Local Void and toward the Virgo Cluster, represented by the purple spherecircle. Most galaxies between us and the Virgo Cluster will eventually fall into the cluster but we lie slightly beyond the capture zone. Credit: R. Brent Tully

    Our home Milky Way galaxy (MW, yellow) and our companion Andromeda galaxy (M31, red) are participating in a downward flow away from a vast underdense region called the Local Void and toward the Virgo Cluster, represented by the purple spherecircle. Most galaxies between us and the Virgo Cluster will eventually fall into the cluster but we lie slightly beyond the capture zone. Credit: R. Brent Tully

    Researchers have constructed the galaxies’ motions from 13 billion years in the past to the present day. A team of astronomers from Maryland, Hawaii, Israel and France has produced the most detailed map ever of the orbits of galaxies in our extended local neighborhood, showing the past motions of almost 1,400 galaxies within 100 million light years of the Milky Way.

    The main gravitational attrac...

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    Galaxy Trailed by Stunning Plume of Gas

    February 22, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Image of galaxy tail. Credit: Image courtesy of International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR)

    Image of galaxy tail. Credit: Image courtesy of International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR)

    Astronomers have discovered a spectacular tail of gas more than 300,000 light years across coming from a nearby galaxy in the Virgo cluster, a group of galaxies 55 million light years from our own Milky Way. The plume is made up of hydrogen gas – the material new stars are made of – and is 5X longer than the galaxy itself. The discovery was made by an international team of scientists led by Dr Alessandro Boselli at the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille in France. Scientists noticed long ago that galaxy NGC 4569 contained less gas than expected but they could not see where it had gone.

    “We didn’t have the smoking gun, the clear evidence of direct removal of gas from the galaxy,” ...

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    Common Chemical Makeup at Largest Cosmic Scales

    October 27, 2015, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Suzaku mapped iron, magnesium, silicon and sulfur in four directions all across the Virgo galaxy cluster for the first time. The northern arm of the survey (top) extends 5 million light-years from M87 (center), the massive galaxy at the cluster's heart. Ratios of these elements are constant throughout the cluster, which means they were mixed well early in cosmic history. The dashed circle shows what astronomers call the virial radius, the boundary where gas clouds are just entering the cluster. Some prominent members of the cluster are labeled as well. The background image is part of the all-sky X-ray survey acquired by the German ROSAT satellite. The blue box at center indicates the area shown in the visible light image. Credit: A. Simionescu (JAXA) and Hans Boehringer (MPE)

    Suzaku mapped iron, magnesium, silicon and sulfur in four directions all across the Virgo galaxy cluster for the first time. The northern arm of the survey (top) extends 5 million light-years from M87 (center), the massive galaxy at the cluster’s heart. Ratios of these elements are constant throughout the cluster, which means they were mixed well early in cosmic history. The dashed circle shows what astronomers call the virial radius, the boundary where gas clouds are just entering the cluster. Some prominent members of the cluster are labeled as well. The background image is part of the all-sky X-ray survey acquired by the German ROSAT satellite. The blue box at center indicates the area shown in the visible light image. Credit: A. Simionescu (JAXA) and Hans Boehringer (MPE)

    A new survey ...

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