Astronomers of the University of Alabama in Huntsville (USA) discovered a mysterious orphan cloud (English Orphan Cloud, OC) the size of more than the Milky Way, which is in the intergalactic space. It consists of hot gas with a temperature of 10-100 million Kelvinov and a total mass of 10 billion suns, which makes it massive than some galaxies. This is reported in the article published in the journal MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMOMICAL SOCIETY.
The cosmic cloud is located on the outskirts of the galactic cluster of the lion (A1367) containing 70 galaxies and a distance removed at a distance of 330 million light years. It is removed from the center of the cluster at 800 kiloparsk (2.6 million light years).
The object was detected using the XMM-Newton XMM-NEWTON) of the European Space Agency (ESA). The cloud was also observed using the VLT telescope (Very Large Telescope) in Chile and the Japanese telescope “Subaru”. XMM received an X-ray cloud image, and optical images in the line of the Balmer of the hydrogen atom (dark red) – VLT and Subaru. OC has become the first object of this kind, which is observed both in X-ray and optical rays.
According to scientists, the cloud arose from the interstellar gas, which was removed from the unknown parental galaxy as a result of shock pressure. This happens when the galaxy flies at a speed of 1000-2000 kilometers per second (which 50 times exceeds the speed of the earth around the sun), while in the intergalactic hot gas (ICM) in the cluster of the lion. In OC, weak star formation occurs, as well as the ionization of the unknown nature. The X-ray peak region does not coincide with the optical radiation center and removed from it to 12 kiloparsk (39 thousand light years), which indicates the presence of multiphase processes associated with slow mixing of the cold gas remaining in the cloud with an intergalactic medium.
The cloud also has a weak magnetic field with an inductance of 6 microgauss, which is able to suppress the hydrodynamic instability arising when interacting with the intergalactic medium and provides a cloud durability. It is estimated that it existed hundreds of millions of years after removal from the parental galaxy, although usually such orphan clouds are quickly mixed with ICM.