Hydra I Galaxy Cluster & Jellyfish Galaxy NGC 3312: Wider-field View | ESO

Hydra I Galaxy Cluster & Jellyfish Galaxy NGC 3312: Wider-field View | ESO

The image shows a colorful backdrop of stars and galaxies against the black cosmos. There is a particularly large and bright star slightly left of the center, and below this, a clear spiral galaxy. The spiral galaxy appears slightly smudged.

This image shows a portion of the Hydra I galaxy cluster. Underneath the bright star taking the spotlight in the center-left of the image, notice the spiral galaxy that looks almost smudged across the screen, spilling its contents into the cosmos around it. This is NGC 3312, a galaxy that is losing gas through a process known as ram pressure stripping.

This happens when a galaxy moves through a dense fluid, like the hot gas suspended between galaxies in a cluster. This hot gas drags against the colder gas on the outer shell of the galaxy, ‘pulling’ it off of the galaxy and causing it to leak into the cosmos. This cold gas is the raw material that forms stars, meaning galaxies losing gas this way risk a dwindling stellar population. Affected galaxies—usually those falling into the center of clusters—tend to eventually form long tendrils of gas trailing behind them, leading to their nickname: jellyfish galaxies.

Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO) / INAF / M. Spavone, E. Iodice

Release Date: Sept. 9, 2024

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