Muse View Of The Ram-Pressure Stripped Galaxy ESO 137-001 (IMAGE)

ESO

Muse View Of The Ram-Pressure Stripped Galaxy ESO 137-001

Caption

The MUSE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope has provided researchers with the best view yet of a spectacular cosmic crash. Observations reveal for the first time the motion of gas as it is ripped out of the galaxy ESO 137-001 as it ploughs at high speed into a vast galaxy cluster. The results are the key to the solution of a long-standing mystery -- why star formation switches off in galaxy clusters. In this picture the colours show the motions of the gas filaments -- red means the material is moving away from Earth compared to the galaxy and blue that it is approaching. Note that the upper-left and lower-right parts of this picture have been filled in using the Hubble image of this object.

Credit

ESO/M. Fumagalli

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