![](\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2013\/11\/hot_gas_sloshing_in_a_galactic_cauldron\/13402009-1-eng-GB\/Hot_gas_sloshing_in_a_galactic_cauldron_small.jpg\")
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\nGalaxies are social beasts that are mostly found in groups or clusters \u2013 large assemblies of galaxies that are permeated by even larger amounts of diffuse gas. With temperatures of 10 million degrees or more, the gas in galaxy groups and clusters is hot enough to shine brightly in X-rays and be detected by ESA\u2019s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory.\n<\/p>\n
\nAs galaxies speed through these gigantic cauldrons, they occasionally jumble the gas and forge it into lop-sided shapes. An example is revealed in this composite image of the galaxy group NGC 5044, the brightest group in X-rays in the entire sky.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe group is named after the massive and bright elliptical galaxy at its centre, surrounded by tens of smaller spiral and dwarf galaxies. The galaxies are shown in a combination of optical images from the Digitized Sky Survey with infrared and ultraviolet images from NASA\u2019s WISE and Galex satellites, respectively. Foreground stars are also sprinkled across the image.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe large blue blob shows the distribution of hot gas filling the space between NGC 5044\u2019s galaxies as imaged by XMM-Newton. From the X-ray observations, astronomers can also see the glow of iron atoms that were forged in stellar explosions within the galaxies of the group but streamed beyond. The distribution of iron atoms is shown in purple.\n<\/p>\n
\nEmbedded within the hot gas are clouds of even more energetic plasma that emit radio waves \u2013 a reminder of the past activity of a supermassive black hole lurking at the centre of the group. These are the green filament extending from the central galaxy to the lower right and the larger green region to its lower left, which were imaged with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope, near Pune in India.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe distribution of the intergalactic gas and its ingredients is asymmetric, with a larger splotch in the upper right part of the image and a smaller one in the lower left.\n<\/p>\n
\nAstronomers believe that gas in NGC 5044 is sloshing as a consequence of a galaxy that passed through it several millions of years ago. The culprit is the spiral galaxy NGC 5054, which is not visible here, instead hiding beyond its lower left corner.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe transit of NGC 5054 through the centre of the group may have also caused the twisted shape of the radio-bright filament.\n<\/p>\n
\nThis image was first published in the XMM-Newton Image Gallery<\/a> in October 2013. The analysis is reported in the paper by E. O\u2019Sullivan et al. \u201cThe impact of sloshing on the intra-group medium and old radio lobe of NGC 5044<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \t\t\t\t\t \nGalaxies are social beasts that are mostly found in groups or clusters \u2013 large assemblies of galaxies that are permeated by even larger amounts of diffuse gas. With temperatures of 10 million degrees or more, the gas in galaxy groups and clusters is hot enough to shine brightly in X-rays and be detected by ESA\u2019s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory.\n<\/p>\n \nAs galaxies speed through these gigantic cauldrons, they occasionally jumble the gas and forge it into lop-sided shapes. An example is revealed in this composite image of the galaxy group NGC 5044, the brightest group in X-rays in the entire sky.\n<\/p>\n \nThe group is named after the massive and bright elliptical galaxy at its centre, surrounded by tens of smaller spiral and dwarf galaxies. The galaxies are shown in a combination of optical images from the Digitized Sky Survey with infrared and ultraviolet images from NASA\u2019s WISE and Galex satellites, respectively. Foreground stars are also sprinkled across the image.\n<\/p>\n \nThe large blue blob shows the distribution of hot gas filling the space between NGC 5044\u2019s galaxies as imaged by XMM-Newton. From the X-ray observations, astronomers can also see the glow of iron atoms that were forged in stellar explosions within the galaxies of the group but streamed beyond. The distribution of iron atoms is shown in purple.\n<\/p>\n \nEmbedded within the hot gas are clouds of even more energetic plasma that emit radio waves \u2013 a reminder of the past activity of a supermassive black hole lurking at the centre of the group. These are the green filament extending from the central galaxy to the lower right and the larger green region to its lower left, which were imaged with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope, near Pune in India.\n<\/p>\n \nThe distribution of the intergalactic gas and its ingredients is asymmetric, with a larger splotch in the upper right part of the image and a smaller one in the lower left.\n<\/p>\n \nAstronomers believe that gas in NGC 5044 is sloshing as a consequence of a galaxy that passed through it several millions of years ago. The culprit is the spiral galaxy NGC 5054, which is not visible here, instead hiding beyond its lower left corner.\n<\/p>\n \nThe transit of NGC 5054 through the centre of the group may have also caused the twisted shape of the radio-bright filament.\n<\/p>\n \nThis image was first published in the XMM-Newton Image Gallery<\/a> in October 2013. The analysis is reported in the paper by E. O\u2019Sullivan et al. \u201cThe impact of sloshing on the intra-group medium and old radio lobe of NGC 5044<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=218237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=218237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=218237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=218237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n