The structure connects two very large galaxy clusters

May 18, 2012 07:35 GMT  ·  By
The Herschel Space Observatory has discovered a giant, galaxy-packed filament ablaze with billions of new stars
   The Herschel Space Observatory has discovered a giant, galaxy-packed filament ablaze with billions of new stars

Observations conducted with the European Space Agency's (ESA) Herschel Space Observatory have just revealed the presence of a huge, galaxy-filled filament of matter connecting two large galaxy clusters. These structures are on their way to a full-scale merger.

The event will also include a third cluster, which is currently not connected to the others. When the merging process will be complete, the resulting structure will be one of the largest galaxy superclusters ever to form in the Universe.

One of the most interesting things about the newly found filament is that it contains billions of bright new stars. These blue objects formed within the last hundred million years or so. As the most advanced telescope ever sent to space, Herschel is uniquely qualified to observe such structures.

An additional reason for which this investigation is so important is that it provides insight into a unique time in the life of galaxies, that preceding the formation of cluster and superclusters. Astronomers have been wondering about the forces at work in such a scenario for many years.

Experts affectionately refer to the glowing filament as a galactic bridge. “We are excited about this filament, because we think the intense star formation we see in its galaxies is related to the consolidation of the surrounding supercluster,” Kristen Coppin reveals.

The expert, who holds an appointment as an astrophysicist at the McGill University, in Canada, was the lead author of a new paper describing the findings. The work is published in the latest issue of the esteemed Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“This luminous bridge of star formation gives us a snapshot of how the evolution of cosmic structure on very large scales affects the evolution of the individual galaxies trapped within it,” adds McGill expert and study team member, Jim Geach, also a coauthor of the research paper.

Herschel places the length of the filament at around 8 million light-years, and reveals the presence of hundreds of galaxies within the structure. It provides a direct link between two of three clusters in the RCS2319 supercluster. The latter is located around 7 billion light-years away from Earth.

According to investigators, the galaxies within the filament produce around 100 solar masses’ worth of new stars every year, which is an extremely rapid pace. All blue stars form within massive gas and dust clouds, but Herschel's amazing eyes can easily pierce these cloaks.

“A high rate of interactions and mergers between galaxies could be disturbing the galaxies' gas reservoirs, igniting bursts of star formation,” Geach concludes, quoted in a press release from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in Pasadena, California.