‘Galactic Jellyfish’ spotted floating in outer space

By Dean Murray via SWNS

Space scientists say they have spotted a "Galactic Jellyfish."

Astronomers announced on Friday, March 24, the presence of streams of star-forming gas dripping from the disk of the galaxy JW100, which is over 800 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus.

Comparing them to "streaks of fresh paint," an ESA (European Space Agency) spokesperson says they point to a process called ram pressure stripping, which the view from Hubble Space Telescope shows resembling "dangling jellyfish tentacles."

Ram pressure stripping occurs when galaxies encounter the diffuse gas that pervades galaxy clusters.

According to ESA: "As galaxies plow through this tenuous gas, it acts like a headwind, stripping gas and dust from the galaxy and creating the trailing streamers that prominently adorn JW100."

ESA says the other bright elliptical patches in the Hubble image are other galaxies in the cluster that hosts JW100.

ESA adds: "This observation took advantage of Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and its capabilities. The data is part of a sequence of observations designed to explore star formation in the tendrils of jellyfish galaxies.

"These tendrils represent star formation under extreme conditions and could help astronomers better understand the process of star formation elsewhere in the universe."