By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept

Science, Space & Technology

Space Science Digital
Contact
Search
  • Home
  • Environment

    200-foot asteroid 2023 DZ2 to pass closer than moon

    March 17, 2023

    Navigate a new Mars map of craters and volcanoes

    April 6, 2023

    Martian moon Deimos image reveals far side for 1st time

    April 25, 2023

    Jammed radar boom on Jupiter-bound Juice probe finally freed

    May 12, 2023
  • Space Flight

    Hubble Space Telescope images are being spoiled by satellite trails

    March 2, 2023

    Crew Dragon splashes down to close out 157-day mission

    March 12, 2023

    Rocket Lab’s Electron deploys two Capella radar satellites

    March 17, 2023

    NASA’s Artemis I mission has ended as Orion splashed down on Earth

    December 11, 2022
  • Cosmology

    Why are small black holes more dangerous than big ones?

    February 14, 2023

    Want Artemis to Succeed? Virtual Reality Can Help

    March 9, 2023

    Planets Might Protect their Water Until their Star Settles Down

    March 17, 2023

    Hypervelocity Stars Teach us About Black Holes and Supernovae

    March 23, 2023
  • Latest
  • About Us
Reading: Chandra determines what makes a galaxy’s wind blow
Share
Aa
Space Science DigitalSpace Science Digital
  • Environment
  • Space Flight
  • Cosmology
  • Technology
Search
  • Home
  • Categories
    • Environment
    • Technology
    • Cosmology
    • Space Flight
  • More Foxiz
    • Blog Index
    • Forums
    • Complaint
    • Sitemap
Follow US
© 2023 Space Science Digital. All Rights Reserved.
Space Science Digital > Blog > News > Chandra determines what makes a galaxy’s wind blow
News

Chandra determines what makes a galaxy’s wind blow

By Jayden Hanson March 29, 2023 8 Min Read
Share


This release features an optical image of the spiral galaxy NGC 253, and a separate composite closeup of the galaxy’s bright center. In both images, the galaxy is set against the blackness of space, which is dotted with specks of light. From a distance, spiral galaxies appear round and flat, like disks. Here, NGC 253’s flat edge is shown, not its round face. In the primary image, the galaxy resembles the edge of a dinner plate made of gold and silver clouds, tilted diagonally from our upper left to our lower right. The galaxy appears bright and dense near the center, and thinner near the veiny outer rim. Tiny specks of neon pink appear throughout the golden core and silver edges. A closeup of the galaxy’s center is presented in a separate, composite image. In this composite rendering, the heart of the galaxy is shown in a variety of colors. At the center is a misty, neon pink blob with a brilliant white core. This is a galactic wind of extremely hot gas, detected by Chandra’s X-ray Observatory. Surrounding the misty neon pink blob is a cyan, or greenish-blue, swirl, and mottled burnt orange and red clouds. The swirling cyan represents visible light data and the burnt orange represents hydrogen emissions, both from the Kitt Peak National Observatory. The red represents infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. This composite closeup shows hot winds blowing in opposite directions away from the center of the galaxy. These powerful winds are spreading stellar material to the galaxy’s next generation of stars and planets. Credit: Chandra X-ray Center

On Earth, wind can transport particles of dust and debris across the planet, with sand from the Sahara ending up in the Caribbean or volcanic ash from Iceland being deposited in Greenland. Wind can also have a big impact on the ecology and environment of a galaxy, just like on Earth, but on much larger and more dramatic scales.

A new study using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory shows the effects of powerful winds launched from the center of a nearby galaxy, NGC 253, located 11.4 million light-years from Earth. This galactic wind is composed of gas with temperatures of millions of degrees that glows in X-rays. An amount of hot gas equivalent to about two million Earth masses blows away from the galaxy’s center every year.

NGC 253 is a spiral galaxy, making it similar to our Milky Way. However, stars are forming in NGC 253 about two to three times more quickly than in our home galaxy. Some of these young stars are massive and generate a wind by ferociously blowing gas from their surfaces. Even more powerful winds are unleashed when, later in their relatively short lives, these stars explode as supernovae, and hurl waves of material out into space.

NGC 253 gives astronomers a keyhole through which to study this important phase in the stellar life cycle. The material that the young stars send out into intergalactic space across hundreds of light-years is enriched with elements forged in their interior. These elements, which include many responsible for life on Earth, are folded into the next generations of stars and planets.






Credit: Chandra X-ray Center

A new composite image of NGC 253 in the inset includes Chandra data (pink and white) showing that these winds blow in two opposite directions away from the center of the galaxy, to the upper right and lower left. Also shown in this image is visible light data (cyan) and emission from hydrogen (orange), both from a 0.9 meter telescope at Kitt Peak Observatory, and infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope (red). From Earth’s vantage point, NGC 253 appears nearly edge-on, as seen in the wider image in the graphic, which shows an optical image from the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.

A team led by Sebastian Lopez of The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, used deep Chandra observations, taken over four days, to study the properties of the wind. They found that the densities and temperatures of the gas in the wind are the highest in regions less than about 800 light-years from the center of the galaxy—and then decrease with distance farther away.

These results disagree with an early model where the winds from so-called starburst galaxies like NGC 253 are spherical. Instead, recent theoretical work predicts that a more focused wind should be formed by a ring of “super star clusters” located near the center of NGC 253. Super star clusters contain large numbers of young, massive stars.

The focused nature of the wind observed by Lopez and his team therefore supports the idea that the super star clusters are a major source of the wind. However, there is not complete agreement between theory and observations, suggesting there is physics missing from the theory.

NGC 253: Chandra determines what makes a galaxy's wind blow
Close-Up View of NGC 253. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/The Ohio State Univ/S. Lopez et al.; Optical: ESO/La Silla Observatory

A hint about what is missing comes from the team’s observation that the wind cools rapidly as it moves away from the center of the galaxy. This suggests that the wind is plowing up cooler gas, causing the wind to cool and slow down. Such a ‘wind plow’ effect might be the extra physics required to produce better agreement between theory and observations.

Lopez and his colleagues also studied the composition of the wind, including how elements like oxygen, neon, magnesium, silicon, sulfur, and iron are scattered across the structure. They found that these elements become much more diluted farther away from the center of the galaxy. Astronomers did not see such a rapid decrease in the amounts of these elements in the wind from another well-studied galaxy undergoing a burst of star formation, M82.

Astronomers will need future observations of other galaxies with winds to understand whether this difference is related to the general properties of the galaxies, such as the total mass of the stars they contain.

A paper describing these results was published in The Astrophysical Journal.

More information:
Sebastian Lopez et al, X-Ray Properties of NGC 253’s Starburst-driven Outflow, The Astrophysical Journal (2023). DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/aca65e

Provided by
Chandra X-ray Center


Citation:
NGC 253: Chandra determines what makes a galaxy’s wind blow (2023, March 29)
retrieved 2 April 2023
from https://phys.org/news/2023-03-ngc-chandra-galaxy.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.



TAGGED: blow, Chandra, determines, galaxys, wind

Sign Up For Daily Newsletter

Be keep up! Get the latest breaking news delivered straight to your inbox.
[mc4wp_form]
By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
Jayden Hanson March 29, 2023
Share this Article
Facebook Twitter Email Copy Link Print
Leave a comment Leave a comment

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!

[mc4wp_form]

HOT NEWS

Hubble Space Telescope images are being spoiled by satellite trails

Space Flight
March 2, 2023

Is that this black gap jet making stars explode?

Again to Article Listing Greater than twice the anticipated quantity of novae have been discovered…

October 27, 2024

NASA Says Spacecraft Crash Test Successfully Changes Asteroid’s Orbit

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A spacecraft that plowed into a small, harmless asteroid millions…

October 11, 2022

World-Saving Spacecraft Passes Test

NASA says its DART spacecraft successfully shifted the path of an asteroid. For us earthlings,…

October 11, 2022

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

Proposed CASTOR Area Telescope Waits on Authorities

The proposed Canadian led Cosmological Superior Survey Telescope for Optical and uv Analysis, generally referred to by its acronym CASTOR,…

News
October 27, 2024

Dwelling (Alone) on Mars: Actor Daniel Stern on main NASA in ‘For All Mankind’

If there's certainly a multiverse the place in each attainable end result occurs, then in a type of universes Marv…

News
December 23, 2023

China Spacewalk: Photo voltaic Panel Restore Check

Picture credit score: China Nationwide Area Administration (CNSA)/China Central Tv (CCTV) The primary extravehicular exercise of the Shenzhou-17 mission was…

News
December 23, 2023

Watch large loop of plasma dance above the solar in gorgeous video

Miguel Claro is an expert photographer, writer and science communicator primarily based in Lisbon, Portugal, who creates spectacular pictures of…

News
December 23, 2023
We use our own and third-party cookies to improve our services, personalise your advertising and remember your preferences.
  • Jobs Board
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Exclusives
  • Learn How
  • Support
  • Solutions
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Editorial Policy
  • Marketing Solutions
  • Industry Intelligence

Follow US: 

Space Science Digital

Welcome to spacescience.digital, A source for the latest news and developments in the exciting field of space science. Our blog covers a wide range of topics, from the latest space missions and discoveries to updates on technology and scientific breakthroughs. We are passionate about sharing the wonders of the universe with our readers and providing them with engaging and informative content. Join us on this fascinating journey as we explore the mysteries of space and the frontiers of human knowledge.

© 2024 Space Science Digital. All Rights Reserved.

Removed from reading list

Undo
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?