X-ray tail tagged posts

Adaptively smoothed X-ray image of galaxy cluster Zwicky 8338. Credit: Gerrit Schellenberger, Thomas Reiprich.

This galaxy with the enormous X-ray tail is a member of a galaxy cluster known as Zwicky 8338. Gerrit Schellenberger and Thomas Reiprich observed Zwicky 8338 using NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory. They found out that one of the galaxies grouped in this cluster showcases a very long X-ray tail, which is approximately 248,000 light years in length. What is surprising is that the galaxy must have lost all of its X-ray emitting gas very recently.

“It is likely the longest X-ray tail associated with a stripping process from a galaxy with the largest separation from the host galaxy ever detected,” they wrote in the paper...