Astronomers presently discovered massive, 'peanut shell' structures inside close to galaxies Video
Australian astronomers have detect something strange in two disc galaxies located presently beyond the Milky Way - a double-layered agreement of stars that's shaped just like a peanut shell, and is bulging rather visibly from the centre.
Galaxies NGC 128 and NGC 2549, which are about 200 and 60 million light-years away from Earth, both appear to harbour this rare 3-dimensional structure within its stars - something that no one’s ever seen before in extra than one layer.
Oh and did I talk about that these structures are massive - as in, almost galaxy-sized?
"Ionically, these peanut-shaped structure are far from peanut-sized," says one of the researchers, Alister Graham from Swinburne University of Technology. "They consist of billions of stars, classically spanning up to a quarter of the length of the galaxies."
Graham and his team were able to visualise these structures using newly intended software that can interpret data composed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in unique ways.
While astronomers have recognized about galaxies having single peanut shell structures for many years - the Milky Way has one - it was only when they were clever to visualise a galaxy like they do in the picture below, that they could see the 'inner peanut shell'.
Perhaps these bars are bent above and under by a galaxy’s central disc of stars, the team suggests in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, which give rise to the upper and lower bulges of the peanut shell.
"The volatility mechanism may be similar to water organization through a garden hose," says Ciambur. "When the water pressure is low, the hose remains still - the stars stay on their customary orbits. But when the pressure is high, the hose starts to bend - stellar orbits bend outside of the disc."
There’s clearly a whole lot more work to be done to figure out exactly why and how these things get complete, but the Swinburne team is sure that, now we recognize that double layer exists, they can test the increase of stellar bars over time, counting their lengths, rotation speeds, and period of instability.
Galaxies NGC 128 and NGC 2549, which are about 200 and 60 million light-years away from Earth, both appear to harbour this rare 3-dimensional structure within its stars - something that no one’s ever seen before in extra than one layer.
Oh and did I talk about that these structures are massive - as in, almost galaxy-sized?
"Ionically, these peanut-shaped structure are far from peanut-sized," says one of the researchers, Alister Graham from Swinburne University of Technology. "They consist of billions of stars, classically spanning up to a quarter of the length of the galaxies."
Graham and his team were able to visualise these structures using newly intended software that can interpret data composed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in unique ways.
While astronomers have recognized about galaxies having single peanut shell structures for many years - the Milky Way has one - it was only when they were clever to visualise a galaxy like they do in the picture below, that they could see the 'inner peanut shell'.
"The volatility mechanism may be similar to water organization through a garden hose," says Ciambur. "When the water pressure is low, the hose remains still - the stars stay on their customary orbits. But when the pressure is high, the hose starts to bend - stellar orbits bend outside of the disc."
There’s clearly a whole lot more work to be done to figure out exactly why and how these things get complete, but the Swinburne team is sure that, now we recognize that double layer exists, they can test the increase of stellar bars over time, counting their lengths, rotation speeds, and period of instability.
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