Jellyfish galaxy

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Ram pressure stripping of gas from a galaxy in ESO 137-001. NASA's Hubble Finds Life is Too Fast, Too Furious for This Runaway Galaxy (12952512944).jpg
Ram pressure stripping of gas from a galaxy in ESO 137-001.

A jellyfish galaxy is a type of galaxy found in galaxy clusters. They take the appearance of jellyfish with distinctive tail of gas often with regions of starbursts along it. They are formed when a galaxy located in a galaxy cluster with a dense environment travels through it. The gas in the galaxy is stripped of in a process called ram pressure stripping. [1]

Contents

The most distant jellyfish galaxy is currently the candidate galaxy COSMOS2020-635829. [2]

Formation

Clusters of galaxies are known to influence and transform galaxies through interactions with the intracluster medium (ICM). Observed effects include galaxy collisions, galaxy harassment and jellyfish galaxies. [3] Jellyfish galaxies are seen as extreme examples of how a galaxy can change due to the effects of a dense environment inside galaxy clusters. [4]

Jellyfish galaxies form through a process known as ram-pressure stripping (RPS). The pressure exerted on a galaxy is directly proportional to the density of the local gas in the ICM and to the square of the galaxy's velocity with respect to the ICM. The resulting gas being removed from the galaxies interstellar medium (ISM) occurs in the direction of the galaxies movement, trailing behind it a distinctive gaseous trail of star-forming regions. This trail and deformation of the galaxies disk gives it the appearance of a jellyfish, hence the name for this type of galaxies. [3] There have been numerous studies that use extensive numerical simulations that predict that gradual stripping should be visible even in galaxy clusters with low-mass. [5]

Characteristics

Observational studies of jellyfish galaxies have discovered that these types of galaxies are more likely to host active galactic nuclei (AGN) than other galaxies of similar mass located towards the clusters center. This suggests that there is a link between the effects of ram pressure on a galaxy and the growth of a supermassive black hole (SMBH). This can be caused by the compression of gas in these galaxies which leads to intense episodes of AGN feedback and star formation. [6]

Examples

Jellyfish galaxies have been seen in a number of galaxy clusters including the Hydra Cluster, Abell 2125 (redshift z=0.20; ACO 2125 C153); [7] [1] Abell 2667 (z=0.23; G234144−260358); [7] [1] Abell 2744 (z=0.31; ACO 2744 Central Jellyfish; [8] HLS001427–30234/ACO 2744 F0083; [7] [1] [8] [9] GLX001426–30241 / ACO 2744 F0237 / ACO 2733 CN104; [8] [9] MIP001417–302303 / ACO 2744 F1228; [8] [9] HLS001428–302334; [9] GLX001354–302212 [9] ).

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Harald Ebeling; Lauren N. Stephenson; Alastair C. Edge (1 November 2013). "Jellyfish: Evidence of Extreme Ram-pressure Stripping in Massive Galaxy Clusters". The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 781 (2) (published 15 January 2014): L40. arXiv: 1312.6135 . Bibcode:2014ApJ...781L..40E. doi:10.1088/2041-8205/781/2/L40. S2CID   54018558. L40.
  2. ↑ Roberts, Ian D.; Balogh, Michael L.; Sok, Visal; Muzzin, Adam; Hudson, Michael J.; Jablonka, Pascale (2026-02-17). "JWST Reveals a Candidate Jellyfish Galaxy at z = 1.156". The Astrophysical Journal. 998 (2): 285. doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ae3824 . ISSN   0004-637X.
  3. 1 2 Conor, McPartland; Harald, Ebeling; Elke, Roediger; Kelly, Blumenthal (2016-01-21). "Jellyfish: the origin and distribution of extreme ram-pressure stripping events in massive galaxy clusters". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 455 (3). doi: 10.1093/mnras/stv2508 . ISSN   0035-8711. Archived from the original on 2025-12-19.
  4. ↑ Shalini, Kurinchi-Vendhan,; Eric, Rohr,; Annalisa, Pillepich,; Elad, Zinger,; Mohammadreza, Ayromlou,; D, Joshi, Gandhali (2025-08-29). "Jellyfish galaxies with the IllustrisTNG simulations – Supermassive black hole activity in dense environments with ram-pressure stripped satellites". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 542 (3). doi:10.1093/mnra. ISSN   0035-8711. Archived from the original on 2025-11-02.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. ↑ Vollmer, B.; Cayatte, V.; Balkowski, C.; Duschl, W. J. (2001-11-10). "Ram Pressure Stripping and Galaxy Orbits: The Case of the Virgo Cluster". The Astrophysical Journal. 561 (2): 708–726. arXiv: astro-ph/0107237 . Bibcode:2001ApJ...561..708V. doi:10.1086/323368. ISSN   0004-637X – via Researchgate.
  6. ↑ Kurinchi-Vendhan, Shalini; Rohr, Eric; Pillepich, Annalisa; Zinger, Elad; Ayromlou, Mohammadreza; Joshi, Gandhali D. (2025-09-05), Jellyfish galaxies with the IllustrisTNG simulations -- Supermassive black hole activity in dense environments with ram-pressure stripped satellites, arXiv, doi:10.48550/arXiv.2506.05474, arXiv:2506.05474, retrieved 2026-02-20
  7. 1 2 3 Bob Yirka (30 January 2014). "Hubble images spawn theory of how spiral galaxies turn into jellyfish before becoming elliptical". phys.org.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Owers, Matt S.; Couch, Warrick J.; Nulsen, Paul E. J.; Randall, Scott W. (13 December 2011). "Shocking Tails in the Major Merger Abell 2744". The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 750 (1) (published 16 April 2012): L23. arXiv: 1204.1052 . Bibcode:2012ApJ...750L..23O. doi:10.1088/2041-8205/750/1/L23. S2CID   118365696. L23.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 Rawle, T. D.; Altieri, B.; Egami, E.; Pérez-González, P. G.; Richard, J.; Santos, J. S.; Valtchanov, I.; Walth, G.; Bouy, H.; Haines, C. P.; Okabe, N. (4 March 2014). "Star formation in the massive cluster merger Abell 2744". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 442 (1) (published 4 June 2014): 196–206. arXiv: 1405.1046 . Bibcode:2014MNRAS.442..196R. doi: 10.1093/mnras/stu868 .
  10. ↑ "Supermassive Black Holes Feed on Cosmic Jellyfish - ESO's MUSE instrument on the VLT discovers new way to fuel black holes". www.eso.org. Retrieved 17 August 2017.
  11. ↑ "Of bent time and jellyfish". www.spacetelescope.org. Retrieved 12 November 2018.
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