Why Do the Ionized Gas Clouds Stream Out from Galaxies?
| Science
Using the Subaru Prime Focus Camera (Suprime-Cam) in their observations of the Coma Cluster, researchers from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), Hiroshima University, the University of Tokyo, and other institutes have discovered 14 galaxies accompanied by extended, ionized hydrogen clouds. The discovery marks the first time that scientists have 1) detected many galaxies with extended ionized hydrogen gas clouds in a cluster and 2) investigated their spatial and velocity distribution as well as the characteristics of their parent galaxies. The observations captured images of this cluster of galaxies during a critical moment of galaxy evolution and contribute to an understanding of how such clouds may have formed.