Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Chicago, I. Zhuravleva et al, Optical: SDSS
Atoms in Solitude
Hot gas which is gravitationally bound to clusters of galaxies present scientists with unique opportunities to study the behavior of gas under conditions which cannot be achieved on earth. There's an enormous amount of this hot intra-cluster gas - it contains more electrons and protons than the cluster galaxies themselves. Although the amount of matter in this gas is huge, the gas occupies such a large amount of intergalactic space that it has incredibly low density. An individual proton in the gas might be separated from its nearest neighbor by a distance of roughly 100,000 lightyears. How do such lonely atoms behave and interact? Now astronomers have been able to measure important properties of such low-density, hot gas using the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Using a deep observation of the low-density outskirts of the Coma cluster of galaxies, astronomers were able to measure the smoothness of this low-density gas. The image above shows an optical image of the Coma Cluster of galaxies (in white) with the X-ray emission from the low-density cluster gas in purple. Surprisingly, the X-ray emission from this low density cluster gas reveals that there is a much larger rate of collisions between the charged particles in the hot gas than you might expect. Scientists believe these collisions may be influenced by small-scale turbulence in the plasma, or that the motions of the charged particles in the cluster gas are significantly altered by a weak magnetic field. This study indicates the discovery of new, important physical processes that guide the motion of the cluster gas.
Published: June 24, 2019
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Page Author: Dr. Michael F. Corcoran
Last modified Monday, 26-Feb-2024 17:34:45 EST