A Filament of the Cosmic Web Funneling Cold Gas Onto a Protogalaxy (IMAGE)
Caption
Using the Cosmic Web Imager (CWI) at Palomar Observatory to study a system 10 billion light years away, a team of astronomers led by Caltech has unveiled a galaxy in the making being fed cool gas by a filament of the cosmic web. This picture combines a visible light image with data from CWI. A filament of the cosmic web (outlined here with parallel curved lines) can be seen funneling cold gas onto the protogalaxy (outlined with an ellipse). The CWI is an integral field spectrograph; the researchers used it to create a multiwavelength map showing the velocities with which gas in the system is moving with respect to the center of the system. The red side of the disk is rotating away from us, while the blue side is rotating toward us. Gas within the filament is moving at a constant velocity that matches the blue side of the rotating disk.
Credit
Chris Martin/PCWI/Caltech
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