LEEDS: An international team of astronomers has discovered a gargantuan galaxy cluster with a core bursting with new stars – an incredibly rare find. The discovery, made with the help of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is the first to show that gigantic galaxies at the centres of massive clusters can grow significantly by feeding off gas stolen from other galaxies.
Galaxy clusters are vast families of galaxies bound together by gravity. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way resides within a small galaxy group known as the Local Group, which itself is a member of the massive Laniakea supercluster.
Galaxies at the centres of clusters are usually made of stellar fossils – old, red or dead stars. However, astronomers have now discovered a giant galaxy at the heart of a cluster named SpARCS1049+56 that seems to be bucking the trend, instead forming new stars at an incredible rate.
“We think the giant galaxy at the centre of this cluster is furiously making new stars after merging with a smaller galaxy,” explained Tracy Webb of McGill University, Montreal, Canada, lead author of a new paper accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.
The galaxy was initially discovered using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, located on Mauna Kea in Hawai’i and confirmed using the W.M. Keck Observatory, also on Mauna Kea. Follow-up observations using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope allowed the astronomers to explore the galaxy’s activity.
