Astronomers have found traces of a destroyed galaxy.

Astronomers have found traces of a destroyed galaxy.

The core of the 98 Hickson compact group consists of two spots in the center of the photo. Each of them is a galaxy, like the Milky Way. The point between them is the leading star. The structure of the tadpole covers the central galactic pair and appeared when they destroyed a much smaller galaxy

Astronomers from Israel, the USA and Russia found a destroyed galaxy resembling a giant tadpole with an elliptical head and a long straight tail, at a distance of 300 million light years from Earth. The galaxy in size is stretched by 1 million light years and 10 times larger than the Milky Way.

When galaxies are destroyed, their stars become part of a more massive galaxy or are thrown into intergalactic space. These objects seem unusual, because only one “tail” is almost 500,000 light-years. The analysis shows that the giant “tadpole” was created after the destruction of a small and previously invisible dwarf galaxy, containing mostly stars. After the influence of gravity, the stars near the pair formed the shape of the head, and the delayed stars of the victim created a tail. The extragalactic tadpole has a system of two nearby disk galaxies, each of which extends over 40,000 light years. Together with other galactic neighbors, they form a compact group. The galaxy belongs to the small group HCG098, whose objects in the next billions of years will be merged into one galaxy.

For the first time such compact groups were identified in 1982 by Paul Hickson, who published a catalog of 100 groups. In compact groups, scientists can study “pure” examples of galactic interaction, learn how matter is transferred between them, and how a new accretion substance can change and influence the growth and development of galaxies.

For research collected dozens of images of targets, each of which passed the test filter, excluding extraneous light pollution.

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