Magellanic Bridge

Magellanic Bridge Latest News

A team led by Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) team has discovered the first known system of its kind in the Magellanic Bridge by using eROSITA X-ray telescope.

About Magellanic Bridge

• It is a stream of stars and gas created by the close encounter of two nearby galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.
• It is mainly a gaseous feature connecting the two galaxies, with a small fraction of in situ formed young stars.
• The MB is believed to be composed of tidally stripped material from the SMC during its last encounter with the LMC, approximately 200-300 Myr ago.
• Significance
  • Magellanic Bridge can help us understand how close encounters between galaxies influence the way binary stars form, evolve and survive.
  • Researchers will be able to compare stellar evolution in the Bridge with that in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, and gain a clearer picture of how interactions between neighbouring galaxies shape their stars over time.

Key Features of eROSITA X-ray Telescope

• eROSITA (extended ROentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array) is a wide-field X-ray telescope on-board the Russian-German “Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma” (SRG) observatory.
• It was developed under the leadership of the Max-Planck Institute for extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Germany (DE).
• eROSITA is a sensitive X-ray telescope capable of delivering deep, sharp images over very large areas of the sky in the energy range ~0.2-8 keV. 
• It is placed in a halo orbit around the L2 point
• It has been performing an all-sky survey, in which the whole celestial sphere is mapped once every six months.

Source: IE

‹ ›