From galaxies that are shaped weirdly, to ones that have unique properties, join me
as I show you the strangest galaxies in the universe!
9.
ESO 137-001 I want you to think about the "shapes" of
universes.
Depending on the pictures you look at, you likely think of things like the spirals that
many galaxies are believed to be shaped as.
But in the case of ESO 137-001, that isn't exactly the case.
Because this galaxy...is shaped like a Jellyfish.
No, really, the spiral form of the galaxy is still there.
BUT, it also has a "tail" that is formed by stars that are in its "wake" if you will,
and it's quite a tail as it extends over 260,000 light years into space!
"The newly forming stars in the tail are mysterious because processes common in large groups of
galaxies should make it difficult for new stars to emerge.
Most galaxies live in groups — for example, the Milky Way is a member of the Local Group,
which also contains galaxies like Andromeda and the Triangulum spiral.
Some galaxies reside in much larger gatherings of hundreds or even thousands of galaxies
known as a galaxy cluster."
But that's not what's happening here, and that's what makes it all the more weird and
strange.
“Both gas and dust are getting stripped off, but how much and what happens to the
stripped material and the galaxy itself are still open questions,” said Stacey Alberts
of the University of Arizona, a co-investigator on the project."
Researchers aren’t sure how stars are able to form at all within the tail since the stripping
process should have heated the gas.
“We think it’s hard to strip off a molecular cloud that’s already forming stars because
it should be tightly bound to the galaxy by gravity.
Which means either we’re wrong, or this gas got stripped off and heated up, but then
had to cool again so that it could condense and form stars,” explained Alberts.
Call this a major mystery of the universe because something like this is both somewhat
common, and yet very much unexplained.
And to see one this overt?
Yeah, that's a rarity.
8.
NGC 1052-DF2 Ok, this one was weird in context as I'll
explain.
You see, in 2018, the Hubble Space Telescope (one of the most important pieces of technology
we have in terms of mapping space) found a galaxy known as NGC 1052-DF2.
When scientists and astronomers looked at the galaxy though, they felt that something
was missing.
Mainly, there was a lack of Dark Matter, and that should've been impossible.
"Dark matter is conventionally believed to be an integral part of all galaxies -- the
glue that holds them together and the underlying scaffolding upon which they are built," explains
co-author Allison Merritt from Yale University and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy,
Germany.
And van Dokkum adds: "This invisible, mysterious substance is by far the most dominant aspect
of any galaxy.
Finding a galaxy without any is completely unexpected; it challenges standard ideas of
how galaxies work."
And he wasn't the only one shocked by the images of a galaxy without Dark Matter.
"I spent an hour just staring at this image," lead researcher Pieter van Dokkum of Yale
University says as he recalls first seeing the Hubble image of NGC 1052-DF2.
"This thing is astonishing: a gigantic blob so sparse that you see the galaxies behind
it.
It is literally a see-through galaxy."
Now, it's very curious that they're panicking somewhat about a lack of Dark Matter, many
because...we haven't proven that Dark Matter exists yet.
It's believed to be real, sure, and many feel that the properties explained in regards to
Dark Matter make sense, sure.
But to SAY that Dark Matter is real definitively is a lie.
Because as noted, it's invisible, and it's undetectable with the instruments that we
have right now.
So how would we really know if it's there or not?
Sure enough, after some heavy research, a mistake was noticed.
The distance of the galaxy was much closer to Earth than previously stated.
And because of that, the size of the galaxy was rectified and it made sense why it was
"see through" and "blob-like".
And this ladies and gentlemen is why you don't jump the gun on big proclamations like this
in regards to the universe.
7.
MACS 2129-1 The place known as MACS 2129-1 is definitely
a galaxy that stands out for a whole host of reasons.
Not the least of which is because it's what's known as a "Dead Galaxy".
To be clear, there is life in the form of stars and planets within it, that's not the
issue.
But, the galaxy is no longer "active", meaning that it's not making anymore stars despite
it being over 10 billion years old.
"Scientists believed that galaxies of this sort had formed by merging with smaller galaxies
over time, but MACS 2129-1's stars didn't form from these sort of explosive mergers;
they formed early on, in the disk of the original galaxy."
The truth of the matter is that this galaxy is both alive and dead, and that's very curious
given the fact that it actually spins twice as fast as the Milky Way Galaxy itself!
So how can it spin so fast and yet not have any new stars be born in it?
No one really knows.
But scientists speculate that the galaxy rearranges its insides as it merges with other galaxies
instead of changing the outer shape that we see.
6.
The Andromeda galaxy Arguably the most famous galaxy in the universe
outside the Milky Way, the Andromeda Galaxy is one that has led many people to wonder
what is just outside our own galaxy, mainly because it's our neighbor.
Not just that, it's our largest neighbor by a wide margin, and there's a very good reason
for that.
Mainly, the Andromeda Galaxy is known as a "cannibal galaxy".
What does that mean?
Well, as the title describes, it actually collides with and devours other galaxies in
order to make itself bigger: "Andromeda has a much bigger and more complex
stellar halo than the Milky Way, which indicates that it has cannibalized many more galaxies,
possibly larger ones," lead study author Dougal Mackey, an astronomer at Australian National
University, said in a statement.
"Knowing what kind of a monster our galaxy is up against is useful in finding out the
Milky Way's ultimate fate."
According to estimates of the Andromeda Galaxy, it's believed that the massive cannibal has
been eating star systems for over 10 billion years.
Which would explain a lot if you think about it.
The thing that most people should be worried about though is the fact that the Andromeda
Galaxy and the Milky Way galaxy is saddling up for a big showdown in about 4.5 billion
years.
And when they collide, only one will come out on top, and when that happens, the universe
will definitely not be the same.
Where will we be in all this?
Well, if we survive that long we'd probably still be in the Milky Way Galaxy and thus
will likely be wiped out by the collision, but it's hard to say for certain.
5.
The Tadpole Galaxy So, remember the Jellyfish Galaxy we talked
about a little while ago?
Well, meet its cousin, the Tadpole Galaxy.
This one is very on the nose in terms of its name because of the fact that it has a LONG
tail that is attached to a body that reminds scientists of a tadpole.
So looking at this you may wonder, "How did this happen?"
According to the ones who found it, it's a remnant of sorts from a galaxy that collided
with another.
"We have found a giant, exceptional relic of a disrupted galaxy," says Dr Noah Brosch,
of The Florence and George Wise Observatory at Tel Aviv University's School of Physics
and Astronomy, who led the research for the study.
What might not be conveyed so quickly in the images of the galaxy in question is just how
long the tail itself is.
It's huge.
"What makes this object extraordinary is that the tail alone is almost 500,000 light-years
long," says Prof. R. Michael Rich of the University of California, Los Angeles.
"If it were at the distance of the Andromeda galaxy, which is about 2.5 million light years
from Earth, it would reach a fifth of the way to our own Milky Way."
As for the body of the "tadpole": "The extragalactic tadpole contains a system
of two very close 'normal' disc galaxies, each about 40,000 light-years across," says
Dr Brosch.
"Together with other nearby galaxies, the galaxies form a compact group."
Scientists hope to study this Tadpole galaxy and further learn how colliding galaxies can
do something like this and how many more there may be out there in the world.
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4.
W2246-0526 If this list has shown you anything so far,
it's that the state of our universe is very much in a state of flux.
But what you might not realize is that while some galaxies do collide with each other,
others go and just steal things from one another.
They alter shapes, steal stars, and sometimes even become brighter.
Which is the case with W2246-0526: "The most luminous galaxy in the universe
has been caught in the act of stripping away nearly half the mass from at least three of
its smaller neighbors, according to a new study published in the journal Science.
The light from this galaxy, known as W2246-0526, took 12.4 billion years to reach us, so we
are seeing it as it was when our universe was only about a tenth of its present age."
Now this isn't the same as galaxies colliding with one another, as this isn't full-on bumper
cars like the previous entries.
But this is more like slowly picking a galaxy clean bit by bit and claiming everything as
your own.
Even scientists were surprised by the depth of this thievery:
"We knew from previous data that there were three companion galaxies, but there was no
evidence of interactions between these neighbors and the central source," said Tanio Díaz-Santos
of the Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile, lead author of the study.
"We weren't looking for cannibalistic behavior and weren't expecting it, but this deep dive
with the ALMA observatory makes it very clear."
So it may be a bright spot in the universe, but this galaxy has a dark tone that can't
be ignored.
3.
Little Cub Found in the Ursa Major Constellation, there
is a dwarf galaxy known fondly as the "Little Cub", and it's one that has scientists very
curious despite its impending doom.
Why is that?
Because the "Little Cub" as it is known is a galaxy that is dormant, and it has remained
unchanged for about 13.7 billion years.
If you know the alleged history of the universe, that would mean that it has been the same
since the beginning of the universe more or less.
That would mean the gasses, the molecules, and more could help lead us to more information
about the Big Bang if we're able to study it.
Oh, what's that?
"What about it being doomed?"
Well, it's near another galaxy called NGC 3359, and it's slowly stripping away the gasses
of Little Cub, basically making it a doomed thing.
Which is why many are trying to study it now before it's too late.
"By measuring the relative number of hydrogen and helium atoms in the Little Cub we might
be able to learn more about what made up the Universe in the moments after it began 13.7
billion years ago."
2.
The Petal Galaxy Let's dig back into the visuals of galaxies
for a bit.
There are many galaxies out there in the universe that are growing at various rates as we've
shown.
But ESO 381-12 is different.
Not only is this one growing, it's growing in a way and in a shape that is truly baffling
scientists.
How so?
Well, it looks like a flower in bloom, and the "petals" as they are known aren't symmetrical.
Not only does this cause a very visual thing, it causes a mystery because no one is quite
sure how they formed, why they look like that, and how the stars within them technically
work.
There are theories as to what they are, including being "shockwaves" that were shown via the
images of the galaxy, with the shockwaves coming from the collisions of galaxies that
this one potentially had.
But no one is really sure if that's a real thing.
1.
Messier 83 15 million light years away in the Hydra is
the galaxy known as Messier 83, and it is a galaxy that has caught a lot of people's
eyes.
Mainly because those who have looked at it noticed that it has "two hearts":
"Messier 83's centre is mysterious and unusual; the supermassive black hole at its heart is
not alone.
This striking spiral displays a phenomenon known as a double nucleus -- a feature that
has also been spotted in the Andromeda Galaxy, the nearest spiral galaxy to us.
This does not mean that Messier 83 contains two central black holes, but that its single
supermassive black hole may be ringed by a lopsided disc of stars, which orbits around
the black hole and creates the appearance of a dual core."
This mystery is what is getting Messier 83 a lot of attention, because if it does have
"two hearts"...why is that?
What makes this one so special?
Also, why does it have so many supernova explosions?
We're aiming to find out.
Thanks for watching everyone!
What did you think of these weird galaxies up in space?
Can you believe that such galaxies exist in our universe?
Which of these do you think was the most strange or mysterious?
Let me know in the comments below, be sure to subscribe, and I'll see you next time on
the channel!