New images from Hubble have supported the theory that jellyfish black holes are created when they are pulled into dense galaxy clusters. This stretches the spiral shape into the familiar sea creature and eventually turns into an elliptical galaxy as it is integrated into the cluster. A trio of researchers, two from the University of Hawaii and one from the University of Dunham, have studied images from Hubble and have witnessed what they believed to be how spiral galaxy evolve when they near a cluster. Cold gas from the galaxy gets pulled into the cluster, and the outer stars on the spirals also get pulled, resulting in the stretch that they are observing. The theory explains both the presence of the jellyfish galaxies and the orphan stars that are not part of the spiral galaxy.
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replace "black holes" with "galaxies" in the first sentence.
ReplyDeleteAs the galaxies collide with the gas in the clusters, it strips much of the gas off in one direction, giving the appearance of a jellyfish.
3 points.