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Getting to Know Virgo: a Date with Galactic Evolutionary History
Researchers use phase-space location with hydrogen gas morphology to trace galaxy interactions.
In the continuing quest to understand the internal workings of our cosmos, Dr. Aeree Chung from Yonsei University with other researchers from around the world, attempted to create tools for projecting galaxy trajectories and star formations using only imaging of hydrogen gas. Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe and can be easily visualized using a wide variety of tools. In this case, the researchers focused on HI, which is the chemical symbol for the neutral form of the gas. This is important because it provides a kind of record for where the galaxy has been and what it’s been up to (interactively speaking).
Galaxies, like all physical things, are subject to a wide variety of physical processes. Just as our past helps make up our personality, galaxies’ exposure to tidal effects and something called “ram pressure stripping” (basically the galactic version of getting squeezed and pushed) helps to create a unique signature in the amount of hydrogen available in their disk space. This amount of gas helps determine how many stars get formed, what the shape of the galaxy itself looks like, and can even help predict its trajectory, which, as Dr. Chung notes, “tracing a galaxy’s trajectory from a single snapshot is…difficult, if not impossible.”
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