🌍 Did you know that some galaxies grow by feeding on other galaxies?
At the very beginning, there's the Big Bang, the scientific theory that explains the very first moments of the Universe. 13.8 billion years ago, this "Big Bang" resulted in an extremely dense and hot Universe. It was like a gigantic torrid magma composed of elementary particles such as electrons, photons, quarks and a few others. All existing in total disharmony.
Then, in the space of a few hundred million years, the cosmos went from a disordered, unstructured state to a richly structured Universe. Research carried out by scientists over the last few decades is helping us to understand the history of the Universe, its current structure and, in particular, the formation of galaxies. This is a fundamental question that conditions the formation of stars and, consequently, of planets and the synthesis of our atoms. Galaxy formation is recognized as an extremely difficult question, since galaxies are considered to be wonderfully complex objects.
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💥The Cannibal Galaxies:
In the Lynx constellation, two galaxies have been caught in the middle of a cannibalism scene. NGC 2798 is a barred spiral galaxy 93.9 million light-years away. Its diameter is around 76,300 light-years. NGC 2799 is a magellanic-type barred spiral galaxy. Its diameter is around 55,400 light-years. NGC 2798 was first discovered in 1788 by William Herschel, due to its slightly greater brightness. NGC 2799 was discovered in 1874 by astronomer Ralph Copeland.
Just a few years ago, spectacular images taken by the Hubble telescope immortalized a scene of cosmic cannibalism between these two distant galaxies. In the image, NGC 2798 appears like a vacuum cleaner drawing the stars of NGC 2799 into its center. Although the space between the stars is so large that stellar collisions are unlikely, the sucked-in stars shine brightly and appear to be caught up in an uncontrollable chaos.
The Milky Way, our own galaxy, is part of a large group of galaxies known as the Local Group. Some sixty galaxies belong to this group. The Local Group itself belongs to a supercluster of galaxies known as the Local Supercluster. Within the Local Supercluster sit dozens of smaller galaxy clusters like the Local Group. The Local Supercluster is centered on a giant cluster of galaxies called the Virgo Cluster. This cluster lies 50 million light-years from the Milky Way. Within the Virgo Cluster lies a giant cannibal galaxy, Messier 87, which attracts and absorbs its neighboring galaxies.
The Virgo Cluster is a gigantic cluster located between 48.9 and 71.8 million light-years away. It was discovered by Charles Messier in 1781, when he drew up a map of the most important galaxies, including M87. The Virgo cluster is located in the constellation Virgo. It is thought to contain between 1,300 and 2,000 galaxies, most of them visible through a small telescope. It comprises a heterogeneous mix of spiral and elliptical galaxies.
The Virgo cluster is an agglomeration of at least three very different sub-clusters. Virgo A is the one centered on the giant elliptical galaxy Messier 87. It is the dominant group of all the sub-clusters, composed of a mixture of mostly gas-poor spiral, elliptical and lenticular galaxies. Recent X-ray observations by the Chandra Space Telescope suggest that the three subgroups have merged to form a single cluster.
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