False Color Image of Damped Lyman-Alpha System J0817 (IMAGE)

University of California - Santa Cruz

False Color Image of Damped Lyman-Alpha System J0817

Caption

Absorption of light from a background quasar reveals concentrations of neutral hydrogen gas in 'damped Lyman-alpha' systems. New observations of two systems revealed the associated galaxies. As seen in this false color image, the gas is detected at a surprising distance from the star-forming region, indicating a large halo or extended disk of gas around the galaxy. In this system, the separation is about 137,000 light years (42 kiloparsecs).

Credit

M. Neeleman

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