Hubble photos help solve mystery
Photos from the Hubble space telescope have helped university experts solve a 100 million-year-old mystery.
For years astronomers have been left scratching their heads over the weird structures around the active galaxy NGC 127 - the central dominant galaxy in the Perseus Cluster - with a supermassive black hole at its core.
But now boffins from the University of Cambridge have worked out that magnetic fields probably hold the charged gas in place and resist forces that would distort the filaments.
This skeletal structure has been able to contain and suspend these odd long threads for over 100 million years, something no-one has been able to explain before.
"We can see that the magnetic fields are crucial for these complex filaments - both for their survival and for their integrity", said Professor Andy Fabian.
"Without them, these beautiful structures would be unable to withstand their surroundings and would collapse into stars."
The data from NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys was used to resolve individual threads of gas which make up the filaments leading the boffins to their conclusions.
The amount of gas contained in a typical thread is around one million times the mass of our own Sun. They are only 200 light-years wide, are often surprisingly straight, and extend for up to 20 000 light-years.
The research is published today in Nature August 2008.
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