Something In the Universe Is Killing Off Galaxies

 

something is killing galaxies in the virgo super cluster galaxy killers are the stuff of fiction the realm of galactus or thanos or perhaps the old school borg not the real universe right

 wrong

 but what if we told you that scientists have recently found a serial galaxy killer in the midst of a massive super cluster for the very first time this is super cool scientists are getting a look at what it looks like when a galaxy dies and the imagery it's just spectacular welcome to fact nominal in today's article we examine what is killing galaxies in the enormous virgo super cluster and calculate the risk of our own little cosmic neighborhood the situation we of course are part of the milky way one of three average galaxies in our remote local group a group which just happens to be on the periphery of the virgo supercluster organisms that do not reproduce meet their end and galaxies are much the same galaxies like biological organisms have lifespans

 astronomers have recently discovered that some of our cosmic neighbors are not living out their natural lives as long as they should and they want to know why

 thankfully our milky way churns out roughly seven new stars a year but some of the galaxies in the virgo super cluster have stopped producing stars altogether

 the virgo sc is close so close that it produces a gravitational effect on our local group called the virgocentric flow imagine the looming specter of a cluster 110 million light years across exerting gravitational influence over our by comparison minuscule galaxy the pull of the virgo sc is so strong that it decreases the milky way's linear hubble reaction meaning the gravitational pull is so powerful that it opposes cosmic expansion

 so what does this have to do with the murder of galaxies vertigo is the virgo environment traced in carbon monoxide a project observing gases in 50 one of the virgo galaxies using alma the atacama large millimeter sub-millimeter array astronomers know some of our neighboring galaxies are dying and are beginning to have a better idea why it starts with the unimaginable conditions within the super cluster itself

 an extreme environment there are many reasons to be glad the milky way is a remote outpost and not in the middle of a giant cluster remember the intense gravitational pull of the virgo supercluster and its sway over the milky way it's about 65 million light years away and still affects our galaxy with elma's 65 radio telescopes in the high desert of chile astronomers studied 51 virgo sc galaxies to catch a glimpse inside the dying galaxies what is all of that gravitational pull do to the galaxies inside the cluster itself

 well there are extreme environments and then there's the interior of this cosmic marvel

 for one it creates speeds of several thousand kilometers per second in the intracluster medium or icm which is made up of superheated plasma common to galaxy clusters temperatures far hotter than the sun's surface produce powerful x-rays and even what astronomers describe as a cosmic low in intergalactic space like busy streets in an urban environment these x-rays by the way are what enable us to determine the actual physical conditions inside the icm such as the temperature and density of the plasma racing between galaxies this extreme environment also holds leftovers from the formation of the cluster's galaxies which is about 10 of the total icm material in fact the icm as a whole has roughly 10 of the galaxy clusters matter compared to only one percent for the stars and galaxies this extreme environment is so far away from the typical assumption of cold and empty space

 there is so much matter reacting that stars are formed in the intracluster medium apart from the actual galaxies too fast and too hot in a nutshell these are the conditions in the virgo supercluster that scientists theorize are killing the galaxies

 let's look at how these conditions add up to possible galactic homicide effects of heat velocity and matter hydrogen gas works as fuel for star creation and without it there are no new stars created

 the milky way for example still has stars forming with leftover gases and particles from its inception billions of years ago

 thankfully we don't have the intense levels of plasma and heat of our cosmic semi-neighbor or we'd be toast literally so why are some galaxies in the virgo supercluster not producing new stars and therefore dying [Music]

 there are multiple theories we will look at but the prevailing thought is that new stars are prevented from forming by tidal stripping this is basically the process of superheated intergalactic plasma removing cold hydrogen gas from galaxies also called gas stripping astronomers likened the process to a massive broom sweeping through the galaxies clearing away the cold molecular gas needed to birth new stars without the necessary ingredients to reproduce galaxies slowly face their deaths

 galaxies not producing new stars appear to be a phenomenon mainly in clusters giving credence to the theory that the extreme environment of the galaxy grouping blocks their creation there are other fascinating theories of what exactly is killing the galaxies in the virgo super cluster let's take a look at some of the suspects

 blame it on black holes nasa has discovered black holes creating hurricane-like effects within star systems that produce velocities up to a quarter of light speed and emit a trillion times the radiation of the sun we have already looked at the gravitational effects of a giant cluster of galaxies in proximity what if that massive pole is combined with a black hole or worse several the sweeping of the tidal broom through the intracluster medium would be magnified by one or more black holes to where the galaxies are stripped of their hydrogen and other gases at an extraordinary rate astronomers have spectacular images of the supermassive black hole m87 which shows the very hurricane-like rotating disk of ionized gas surrounding the object

 imagine the gravitational pull of m87 which harbors the same mass as six and a half billion suns m49 is another galaxy in the virgo super cluster that emits powerful x-rays from its center a strong indicator of yet another smbh in the neighborhood so we know black holes are there very large ones

 combine their gravitational pull with that of the enormous cluster of galaxies on each other and there's even more possible sweeping and there's another unseen force at work that is also a suspect dark matter

 dark matter is theorized to be about 85 of all matter in the universe it does not appear to emit or interact with electromagnetic radiation so astronomers are left to search for its effects on the universe most experts believe that dark matter is very abundant and inevitably collides with galaxies what is the result of this violent cosmic collision galaxies are thought to be embedded in clouds of dark matter called halos when galaxies pass through the larger halos it's likely that the halos remove the fuel for star formation in a process dubbed ram pressure stripping it is theorized that dark matter races through a galaxy and strips away the gases fundamental to star creation much like the sweeping action of the icm superheated in high velocity plasma this action results in killing the ability to produce stars and thus galactic death but the lineup of suspects in the killing of virgo supercluster galaxies does not end there strangulation is a suspect researchers have now turned to another suspect strangulation this violent act is the slow choking off of the galaxy's critical supply of cold gas needed for star formation and the galaxy is in a sense doing it to itself astronomers know many galaxies form stars at a much faster rate than others and therefore may not have time to replace the hydrogen and helium used in the process

 without replenishing the crucial gases the galaxy starves remains from leftover star materials for metals and researchers find that so-called dead galaxies have much higher amounts of metals than living ones metals are in astronomical terms anything heavier than helium what this likely means is that strangulation of galaxies creeps along slowly until the necessary materials get used up

 metal content continues to rise until stars are no longer formed evidence points towards strangulation taking about 4 billion years to kill the victim

 sweeping or stripping by comparison is a faster death for galaxies since it removes gases needed for star formation rather suddenly so is cosmic strangulation a strange enough concept

 all right maybe we're reaching here but some physicists theorize an end to the universe based on the higgs field an energy field thought to occupy the entire universe which by interaction in a sense gives mass to particles that would otherwise float freely around the higgs potential is the idea that the universe is either a true vacuum or a false one

 in a true vacuum the universe is stable and low energy but a false vacuum has potential for the ultimate catastrophe imagine a ball rolling down a hill until it gets stuck in a hole or behind a rock the same ball if it goes all the way to the bottom is stable and low energy but this ball perched on the hillside has potential to be dislodged it is not truly stable and could continue its downward charge until it reaches bottom a region of the universe in a false vacuum state called metastable could break through to another region in a true vacuum

 the result according to theoretical physics would be a bubble of true vacuum that bursts in all directions at light speed

 death to the universe follows could we see this effect in the virgo supercluster

 are galaxies dying from this apocalyptic force hurling towards us at the speed of light is this likely no

 many researchers say the idea of vacuum decay is bunk and new physics may eternally relegate it to the science fiction shelves we do know that galaxies in the virgo super cluster are being killed unable to produce stars and thus doomed to a long and slow death

 very likely they are victims of their own extreme environments ripping away the foundations of star creations until they simply fade away black holes may also be culprits in their demise as we already know they exist in huge numbers in the virgo sc marauding waves of dark matter may come like thieves in the night to rob galaxies of essential gases and hasten their lifespans and as always in the evolution of our understanding of physics there may well be other suspects in the killing of our cosmic neighbors so what do you think about this cosmic whodunit should we start a save the galaxies campaign tell us in the comments and as always thank you for reading fact nominal [Music]