Imagine you’re making Christmas kutia in a multicooker. In order for the dish to cook quickly, it is essential that the lid is tightly closed, keeping the steam inside to create the right pressure and temperature. This process ensures that the kutia cooks evenly, making it well-cooked and delicious. Like cooking kutia, merging galaxies have a kind of “weight” that helps create the conditions for star formation. And this process is somewhat similar to cooking, because it has its own cosmic recipe. And recently scientists have discovered the “missing ingredient” – the magnetic field.
Previously, the role of magnetic fields in galaxy mergers and star formation was purely theoretical. However, an international team led by Dr. David Clements of Imperial College London has made an important discovery. They found evidence for the existence of magnetic fields in the gas and dust disk in the system of two Arp220 galaxies undergoing a merger.
Role of magnetic fields in star formation
Arp220 is a galaxy in which two gas-rich spiral galaxies merge, causing intense star formation. In this process, stars form much faster than in normal galaxies, but the mechanism has remained a mystery to scientists.
Dr. Clements and his team suggest that magnetic fields can stabilize galaxy mergers by preventing heat from new stars and supernova explosions from dissipating star-forming gas. This allows more stars to form in the turbulent environment of merging galaxies.
“This is the first confirmation of magnetic fields in the core of a merging galaxy,” Dr. Clements noted. The discovery enables better models of star formation and the study of other galaxy mergers to better understand the role of magnetic fields.
Arp220 observations
The team used the Submillimeter Array (SMA) observatory in Hawaii to study Arp220 in detail. It is a luminous object in the far infrared, where the combined light of two galaxies and their dust emissions can be seen.
Arp220 is not a typical galaxy — it is a galactic merger that causes intense star formation. Observations indicate that the magnetic fields in this system play an important role in maintaining the conditions for this process.
Magnetic fields are likely a critical stabilizing factor that helps keep the gas together, counteracting its dissipation due to intense heating. The discovery helps astronomers better understand why some galaxies form stars faster than others.
Search for evidence
The next step is to study other galaxies with ultraviolet light using the powerful ALMA telescope to see if magnetic fields are a common factor in merging galaxies and how they affect star formation.
This discovery opens new horizons in the study of galaxy mergers and star formation. Astronomers now know that magnetic fields are not only an interesting feature, but also a key factor that helps create stars in merging galaxies.
The recipe for star formation has become a little clearer for scientists thanks to this discovery, which explains the importance of magnetic fields for the stability of the process.
We previously reported on how turbulence accelerates the birth of stars.
Provided by techexplorist.com
