A new photo of a distant galaxy has revealed a frenzy of starformation driven by what scientists are calling a cosmic"superbubble."
The new image shows the starburst galaxy NGC 1313, which hasbeen experience active star formation that astronomers have been at a loss toexplain. Radio telescope observations suggest that the edge of an expanding"superbubble" is causing gas to pile up and spur the formation ofstars.
"What triggered the superbubble is still a mystery. Itwould have required about a thousand supernovae to go off in the space of justa few million years, or else something punched its way through the disk and setit off like ripples in a pond," said Stuart Ryder, Australian GeminiScientist at the Anglo-Australian Observatory, who has studied this galaxyextensively.
The galaxy itself extends across about 50,000 light-years(about half the extent of the Milky Way) and is located in the direction of thefar southern constellation Reticulum. One light-year is the distance that lightcan travel in one year ? about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km).Generally, starburstgalaxies show some signs of interaction with another galaxy, and a closegalactic encounter is usually responsible for sparking increased levels ofstar-birth activity. However, NGC 1313 is a neighborless "drifter,"far away from any other packs of galaxies.
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