Hubble Solves Cosmic 'Whodunit' with Interstellar Forensics
Release date: Mar 22, 2018 1:00 PM (EDT)
Winner Declared in Tug-of-War Between Two Satellite Galaxies of the Milky Way
In a cosmic tug-of-war between two dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way, only NASA's Hubble Space Telescope can see who's winning. The players are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, and as they gravitationally tug at each other, one of them has pulled out a huge amount of gas from its companion. This shredded and fragmented gas, called the Leading Arm, is being devoured by the Milky Way and feeding new star birth in our galaxy. But which dwarf galaxy is doing the pulling, and whose gas is now being feasted upon? Scientists used Hubble's ultraviolet vision to chemically analyze the gas in the Leading Arm and determine its origin. After years of debate, we now have the answer to this "whodunit" mystery.
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