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Astronomers accidentally discovered the first known interstellar medium. The most “star stream,” which is about 10 times longer than Milky Waysuggests that many of these structures may be hidden in deep space, a new study has revealed.
Stellar streams are elongated threads of gravitationally entwined stars that appear to have been torn away from their parent galaxies or nebulae by the gravitational pull of other nearby galaxies. Scientists have found it map many of these rivers in the galaxy, including the Milky Way. But until now, nothing has been found in intergalactic space, meaning the space between galaxies.
In the study, which was published Nov. 30 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysicsresearchers identified and mapped the first intergalactic star stream, which reaches the Comma Section, also known as Abell 1656, is part of more than 1,000 small galaxies located 321 million light-years from Earth. The researchers called the first structure the Giant Coma Stream – it was named because it was the largest river found.
“This great river crossed our path by accident,” study lead author Javier Románan astrophysicist at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, said in a information. The team first studied the image of scattered stars in the Coma Cluster, in an attempt to measure the dark matter surrounding the galaxy group, when they came to the star road.
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Study the author R. Michael Rich, an astronomer at the University of California, Los Angeles, made the first observation of the Giant Coma Stream with his telescope. The team then turned to the more powerful William Herschel Telescope, located in La Palma in the Canary Islands, Spain, to better study the river.
The researchers were surprised to find the stream of stars hidden in the galaxy cluster. The structure is “a sensitive structure in the midst of a turbulent environment of shared and interspersed galaxies,” study-author research. Reynier Peletier, an astronomer at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, said in a statement. Normally, you would expect something like this to be torn apart by many galaxies, he added.
The team is not sure how the star stream continues and expands so much, but one explanation could be the unusual substance they were looking for first – dark matter. Although this mysterious substance makes up most of the universe, it is completely invisible and can only be seen through its gravitational interactions with visible matter. It’s possible, the team says, that dark matter lurking in this part of the galaxy helped expand the star stream to its current shape.
The researchers plan to study the river with more powerful telescopes to learn more about the mysterious structure and its origin. They also hope to study each star in the stream to see if it is unique in any way.
The discovery of the Giant Coma Stream also opens the door for more intergalactic star streams to be discovered. The researchers believe that there may be many more out there and hope that the increase in telescopes, along with their research, can help other astronomers to find more of these star streams.