A team of researchers and astronomers recently discovered a rare sight, but it was a Manitoban who created a visualization of the phenomenon.
It’s known as a polar ring galaxy, due to a ring of gas around it. That ring rotates around the galaxy in a perpendicular manner, unseen to the naked eye.
Two of them were observed through a telescope owned and operated by Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO. Led by Canadian researchers Nathan Deg and Kristine Spekkens, the team observed the rare clusters after getting traces of small energy signals.
Jayanne English, a professor with the department of physics and astronomy at the University of Manitoba, created a visualization of the results of the research in a composite picture.
“Polar ring galaxies are galaxies that have material that orbit perpendicularly to their disks… this can be a ring of stars (or) a ring of gas,” said English. “There’s this gas ring around a galaxy that doesn’t have an apparent stellar ring, doesn’t have light coming from stars. Just emission coming from gas.”
English said that the discovery itself is rare because the rings are made up entirely from gas. Detecting it required the use of a specialized telescope, the Australian owned ASKAP. Her role, she said, involved taking information from data about the galaxies and mapping out a visual representation of how the gases look like.
She described it as an image that shows the motion of the gas, outlined with different colours.
“The image in the centre. It’s not a painting or anything this is actually constructing out of data. It’s usually called a composite,” said English.
- Satellite built by N.B. students not responding a week after entering Earth’s orbit
- Stuck in B.C. lagoon for weeks, killer whale calf is finally free
- T. Rex an intelligent tool-user and culture-builder? Not so fast, says new U of A research
- Nearly 200 fossil fuel, chemical lobbyists to join plastic treaty talks in Ottawa
The significance of having an image, said English, is to provide more clarity on things like dark matter. According to the Manitoban professor, the substance is something that isn’t fully understood. She does however allude to how the substance is spread across the universe, creating “most of the mass in the galaxy.”
She describes polar ring galaxies as helping out with the following:
- In understanding the distribution of dark matter.
- What are the characteristics of dark matter.
- And what even is dark matter.
But it isn’t just dark matter that can be probed with polar rings. English stated that the way in which gas rotates around and, ultimately, is found around galaxies can help scientists understand how these celestial clusters operate.
She said that there are many ways galaxies can interact with one another and even the environment around them. From pulling materials away from neighbouring galaxies to getting “shredded” as it approaches and merges with another, bigger galaxy. All these can contribute to the formation of a gas ring.
Another hypothesis, she said, is that gas can flow throughout the universe along a “cosmic web” — likened to a 3D model of a spider’s web that connects galaxies.
“What’s going to happen to that gas ring? We expect it will form stars, tilt over, and become a part of the (galaxy’s) disk,” said English.
She hypothesized that the ring may have formed in the past through the merging of two galaxies.
The journey to the galaxies’ discovery, for English, began years ago when she was on sabbatical in Australia. Upon proposing a project to look for what she called cold gas, small whiffs of energy caused by the push of atoms in gas, the team responsible began their long journey. Once the ASKAP telescope was built, Deg and Spekkens, along with their team, began their research.
Analysis of the data that came back from the team, English said, has been ongoing over the last year. She said she’s used all of that information to come up with the visual image that showcases the rare sight of a polar ring over two galaxies.
Comments