United Arab Emirates – About 50 to 60 million light-years from Earth, mysterious star explosions are occurring in a galaxy called NGC 4383.
The mass of the gas flow resulting from these cosmic explosions is 50 million times the mass of our sun.
In a recently published study, researchers from the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) revealed a high-resolution map of explosions in NGC 4383. They indicated that stars in the central part of the galaxy explode, causing the formation of huge clouds of gases and the release of heavy chemical elements in large quantities. big.
Apart from hydrogen, the outflow distributes into space many heavy elements, such as sulfur, nitrogen and oxygen.
“These are the building blocks for planets like Earth, and for life as we know it,” said Adam Watts, the study’s lead author and a research associate at the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research.
NGC 4383 is located in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster, one of the closest galaxy clusters to the Milky Way.
The International Center for Radio Astronomy Research team produced the high-resolution map using data from the MAUVE Surveyor, an ultraviolet satellite that studies the stars in Virgo and other constellations. This map gives scientists a unique opportunity to study the flow of gas in a nearby galaxy.
Gases are erupting from NGC 4383 at a speed of regarding 200 km/s (447,000 mph).
This gas flow is so massive that it takes 20,000 years to reach the end of the gas cloud.
“Finding flows like this is very rare, so every time we find a new flow we get a wealth of new information that we can use to understand the physics of what is happening,” Watts said.
According to scientists, these types of outflows occur when a galaxy forms a lot of new stars very quickly, and this is what happened at the center of NGC 4383.
Shortly following their formation, the largest stars explode brightly, forming supernovae.
Such explosions sweep gas from within the galaxy and carry it away, causing it to flow outward.
Watts noted, “The expelled gas is very rich in heavy elements, which gives us a unique view of the complex process of mixing hydrogen and metals in the flowing gas.”
Moreover, since this gas is the raw fuel for new star formation, its removal by outflow slows the star formation process. This makes the flow of gas an important factor in determining the speed and periods during which a galaxy can continue forming stars.
NGC 4383 is one of the few galaxies through which scientists have been able to measure the chemical elements in the outflow.
Source: Interesting Engineering
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2024-04-28 01:40:35
