Galaxy Zoo Talk

How can you explain that trail?

  • marisa_gomez by marisa_gomez

    Please help with this one!!! Beautiful picture. So active! How can that trail be explained?

    Posted

  • Capella05 by Capella05 moderator

    I would go with a late stage merger. Here is the larger image from SkyServer:

    enter image description here

    Posted

  • mongsiedoodles by mongsiedoodles

    One of the explanations for the trail is due to a hot jupiter which is migrating terribly close to it's star. The average temperature on a hot jupiter may be up to a few thousand degrees celcius. This boiling temperature causes the hot jupiter to lose thousand tonnes of air every second, leaving a trail of gas spiraling behind the planet for thousands of kilometers. Hence this may explain the trail.

    Posted

  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator in response to mongsiedoodles's comment.

    You do realize that you are looking at a galaxy with hundreds of millions even billions of stars. There is no way that a single star, let alone a planet can cause these kind of disturbances ! This galaxy can only be disturbed by another galaxy.

    Posted