galax are not isolated systems , they are really very open . star fall in and wing out , gas flows in and is pushed out , and sometimes other Galax urceolata just smash into them . This is happening everywhere in the universe and it got researchers wondering , is the Milky Way gaining or misplace mass or is it keeping its books equilibrate ?
As report in a report accepted byThe Astrophysical Journal , researchers study the flow of gas around our galaxies to line up out . They estimate that our galaxy lose about 53,000 Earth ’s worth of accelerator pedal each yr , but profit over three times as much : 176,000 earth , or 53 pct of the mass of the Sun . This was quite a surprise for the researchers .
" We expected to find the Milky Way ’s Word balanced , with an balance of gas influx and leak , but 10 year of Hubble ultraviolet radiation data has shown there is more coming in than give out out , " lead generator Andrew Fox of the Space Telescope Science Institute , Baltimore , said in astatement .
Most of the gas being syphon by our galaxy is from the intergalactic medium , but the squad suspects that some could be coming from the small satellite galaxy that palisade the Milky Way . Our galaxy hasalready cannibalizedsome of its companions , so stealing from them is really not a big deal .
The observation were possible thanks to Hubble ’s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph ( COS ) , which was installed in the last servicing missionary post in 2009 . The petrol is very diffuse , make it invisible , so the team used the brightness of distant quasars to work out the holding of these gas clouds . The 200 observation of the diffused gas halo provided them with enough data point to paint this peculiar picture of the Milky Way .
" Studying our own coltsfoot in detail provides the basis for understanding galax across the universe , and we have substantiate that our galaxy is more complicated than we suppose , " carbon monoxide - author Philipp Richter of the University of Potsdam in Germany , sum up .
The team has several ideas on how they are going to follow up this research . They are interested in empathize precisely what the germ of the gas influx are , and study how other swelled galaxies act . There should be enough observations of Andromeda , ournearest tumid coltsfoot , to do a similar field of study .
