{"id":112054,"date":"2020-08-28T20:51:49","date_gmt":"2020-08-29T03:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/hubble-maps-giant-halo-around-andromeda-galaxy"},"modified":"2020-08-28T20:51:49","modified_gmt":"2020-08-29T03:51:49","slug":"hubble-maps-giant-halo-around-andromeda-galaxy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/hubble-maps-giant-halo-around-andromeda-galaxy","title":{"rendered":"Hubble Maps Giant Halo Around Andromeda Galaxy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/hubble-maps-giant-halo-around-andromeda-galaxy.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In a landmark study, scientists using NASA\u2019s Hubble Space Telescope have mapped the immense envelope of gas, called a halo, surrounding the Andromeda galaxy, our nearest large galactic neighbor. Scientists were surprised to find that this tenuous, nearly invisible halo of diffuse plasma extends 1.3 million light-years from the galaxy\u2014about halfway to our Milky Way\u2014and as far as 2 million light-years in some directions. This means that Andromeda\u2019s halo is already bumping into the halo of our own galaxy.<\/p>\n<p>They also found that the halo has a layered structure, with two main nested and distinct shells of gas. This is the most comprehensive study of a halo surrounding a galaxy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnderstanding the huge halos of gas surrounding galaxies is immensely important,\u201d explained co-investigator Samantha Berek of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. \u201cThis reservoir of gas contains fuel for future star formation within the galaxy, as well as outflows from events such as supernovae. It\u2019s full of clues regarding the past and future evolution of the galaxy, and we\u2019re finally able to study it in great detail in our closest galactic neighbor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a landmark study, scientists using NASA\u2019s Hubble Space Telescope have mapped the immense envelope of gas, called a halo, surrounding the Andromeda galaxy, our nearest large galactic neighbor. Scientists were surprised to find that this tenuous, nearly invisible halo of diffuse plasma extends 1.3 million light-years from the galaxy\u2014about halfway to our Milky Way\u2014and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,385],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosmology","category-evolution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112054\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}