{"id":12381,"date":"2016-03-23T07:00:54","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T11:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=12381"},"modified":"2016-03-23T13:54:02","modified_gmt":"2016-03-23T17:54:02","slug":"12381","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=12381","title":{"rendered":"ESO: Exploring the wilds of the Local Group (of galaxies)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest report from the European Southern Observatory (ESO<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The Wilds of the Local Group<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This image<\/a>, captured by ESO\u2019s OmegaCAM on the VLT Survey Telescope, shows a lonely galaxy known as Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte, or WLM for short. Although considered part of our Local Group of dozens of galaxies, WLM stands alone at the group\u2019s outer edges as one of its most remote members. In fact, the galaxy is so small and secluded that it may never have interacted with any other Local Group galaxy \u2014 or perhaps even any other galaxy in the history of the Universe.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This scene, captured by ESO\u2019s OmegaCAM on the VLT Survey Telescope, shows a lonely galaxy known as Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte, or WLM for short. Although considered part of our Local Group of dozens of galaxies, WLM stands alone at the group\u2019s outer edges as one of its most remote members. In fact, the galaxy is so small and secluded that it may never have interacted with any other Local Group galaxy \u2014 or perhaps even any other galaxy in the history of the Universe.<\/p>\n

Rather like an uncontacted tribe living deep in the Amazon rainforest or on an island in Oceania, WLM offers a rare insight into the primordial nature of galaxies that have been little disturbed by their environment.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/cdn.eso.org\/videos\/medium_podcast\/eso1610a.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

This sequence starts with a broad view of the rather faint constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). As we zoom, we close in on a faint galaxy, known as WLM. The final detailed image, captured with the OmegaCAM camera on ESO\u2019s VLT Survey Telescope in Chile, shows the galaxy in great detail, including many of its component stars and some glowing clouds of hydrogen.\u00a0Credit:\u00a0ESO\/A. Fujii\/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Music: Johan B. Monell (www.johanmonell.com<\/a>). Acknowledgement: VST\/Omegacam Local Group Survey<\/em><\/p>\n

WLM<\/a> was discovered in 1909 by German astronomer Max Wolf,<\/a> and identified as a galaxy some fifteen years later by astronomers Knut Lundmark<\/a> and Philibert Jacques Melotte<\/a> \u2014 explaining the galaxy\u2019s unusual moniker. The dim galaxy is located in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster<\/em>) about three million light-years away from the Milky Way, which is one of the three dominant spiral galaxies in the Local Group<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This chart shows the position of the faint, galaxy WLM in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). Most of the stars visible to the naked eye on a clear and dark night are shown. The galaxy itself has a very low surface brightness, it was discoved photographically in the early twentieth century and is very hard to spot visually.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WLM is quite small and lacks structure, hence its classification as a dwarf irregular galaxy<\/a>. WLM spans about 8000 light-years at its greatest extent, a measurement that includes a halo of extremely old stars discovered in 1996 (eso9633<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Astronomers think that comparatively small primeval galaxies gravitationally interacted with each other and in many cases merged, building up into larger composite galaxies. Over billions of years, this merging process assembled the large spiral and elliptical galaxies that now appear to be common in the modern Universe. Galaxies congregating in this manner is similar to the way in which human populations have shifted over thousands of years and intermixed into larger settlements, eventually giving rise to today\u2019s megacities.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This wide-field view shows the sky around the dwarf galaxy WLM in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). This picture was created from images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The galaxy appears at the centre of the picture as an irregularly shaped clump of faint stars.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WLM has instead developed on its own, away from the influence of other galaxies and their stellar populations. Accordingly, like a hidden human population with limited contact with outsiders, WLM represents a relatively unperturbed \u201cstate of nature<\/a>\u201d, where any changes occurring over its lifetime have taken place largely independent of activity elsewhere.<\/p>\n

This small galaxy features an extended halo of very dim red stars, which stretches out into the inky blackness of the surrounding space. This reddish hue is indicative of advanced stellar age. It is likely that the halo dates back to the original formation of the galaxy itself, helpfully offering clues about the mechanisms that spawned the very first galaxies.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/cdn.eso.org\/videos\/medium_podcast\/eso1610b.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

This close-up video pan sequence, captured by ESO\u2019s OmegaCAM on the VLT Survey Telescope, shows a lonely galaxy known as Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte, or WLM for short. Although considered part of our Local Group of dozens of galaxies, WLM stands alone at the group\u2019s outer edges as one of its most remote members. In fact, the galaxy is so small and secluded that it may never have interacted with any other Local Group galaxy \u2014 or perhaps even any other galaxy in the history of the Universe.\u00a0Credit:\u00a0ESO.\u00a0Music: Johan B. Monell (www.johanmonell.com<\/a>). Acknowledgement: VST\/Omegacam Local Group Survey<\/em><\/p>\n

The stars at the centre of WLM, meanwhile, appear younger and bluer in colour. In this image, pinkish clouds highlight areas where the intense light from young stars has ionised<\/a> ambient hydrogen gas, making it glow in a characteristic shade of red.<\/p>\n

This detailed image was captured by the OmegaCAM<\/a> wide-field imager, a huge camera mounted on ESO\u2019s VLT Survey Telescope (VST<\/a>) in Chile \u2014 a 2.6-metre telescope exclusively designed to survey the night sky in visible light. OmegaCAM\u2019s 32 CCD detectors create 256-megapixel images, offering a very detailed wide-field view of the cosmos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest report from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) The Wilds of the Local Group This scene, captured by ESO\u2019s OmegaCAM on the VLT Survey Telescope, shows a lonely galaxy known as Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte, or WLM for short. Although considered part of our Local Group of dozens of galaxies, WLM stands alone at the group\u2019s outer … Continue reading ESO: Exploring the wilds of the Local Group (of galaxies)<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s34aWK-12381","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12471,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=12471","url_meta":{"origin":12381,"position":0},"title":"ESO: New image of the Fornax galaxy cluster","author":"TopSpacer","date":"April 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's the latest report from\u00a0ESO\u00a0(European Southern Observatory): Inside the Fiery Furnace\u00a0 This new image from the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at ESO\u2019s Paranal Observatory in Chile captures a spectacular concentration of galaxies known as the Fornax Cluster, which can be found in the southern hemisphere constellation of Fornax (The Furnace).\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Astronomy"","block_context":{"text":"Astronomy","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"eso1612a[1]","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/eso1612a1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":22098,"url":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=22098","url_meta":{"origin":12381,"position":1},"title":"ESO: Massive star vanishes from view","author":"TopSpacer","date":"June 30, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The latest report from the European Southern Observatory (ESO): A Cosmic Mystery: ESO Telescope Captures the Disappearance of a Massive Star Using the European Southern Observatory\u2019s Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have discovered the absence of an unstable massive star in a dwarf galaxy. 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