Starry tail tells the tale of dwarf galaxy evolution

Date:
January 27, 2023
Source:
National Institutes of Natural Sciences
Summary:
A giant diffuse tail of stars has been discovered emanating from
a large, faint dwarf galaxy. The presence of a tail indicates
that the galaxy has experienced recent interaction with another
galaxy. This is an important clue for understanding how so called
'ultra-diffuse' galaxies are formed.


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FULL STORY ==========================================================================
A giant diffuse tail of stars has been discovered emanating from a large,
faint dwarf galaxy. The presence of a tail indicates that the galaxy has experienced recent interaction with another galaxy. This is an important
clue for understanding how so called "ultra-diffuse" galaxies are formed.


========================================================================== Astronomers using the Subaru Telescope and the Canada-France-Hawaii
Telescope found a tail of stars stretching 200,000 light-years out
away from a galaxy known as F8D1. This galaxy is a member of the M81
group located 12 million light-years away on the boundary between the constellations Ursa Major and Camelopardalis. F8D1 is one of the closest examples of an "ultra-diffuse" galaxy. The origin of these enigmatic
galaxies has puzzled astronomers for several decades: are they born
this diffuse or does some later event cause them to puff up in size?
The discovery of a huge tidal tail from F8D1 is compelling evidence
that the galaxy has been strongly shaped by events in the past billion
years. This is the first time that such a stellar stream has been
discovered in a UDG. The team suggests F8D1 was disrupted by a recent
close passage to the massive spiral M81, the dominant member of the
group containing F8D1.

Since F8D1 lies at the edge of the survey area, only one tidal arm can
be seen, extending to the northeast. The team will now search to see if
there is a counterpart stream to the southwest.

* RELATED_TOPICS
o Space_&_Time
# Galaxies # Astrophysics # Astronomy # Stars #
Space_Telescopes # Nebulae # Cosmology
* RELATED_TERMS
o Globular_cluster o Barred_spiral_galaxy o Magellanic_Clouds
o Planetary_nebula o Local_Group o Galaxy o Andromeda_Galaxy
o Milky_Way

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
National_Institutes_of_Natural_Sciences. Note: Content may be edited
for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Rokas Žemaitis, Annette M N Ferguson, Sakurako Okamoto,
Jean-Charles
Cuillandre, Connor J Stone, Nobuo Arimoto, Mike J Irwin. A tale
of a tail: a tidally disrupting ultra-diffuse galaxy in the M81
group. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2023;
518 (2): 2497 DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stac3133 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/01/230127131205.htm

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