Stephan's Quintet: Anatomy of a Multiple Galaxy Collision.

We present old and new unpublished multiwavelength data for the most famous compact group of galaxies. Such groups are ideal laboratories for studying the effects of strong interactions. The data suggest an evolutionary history that may have general relevance to the compact group phenomenon and to interaction phenomena in the early Universe. The data suggest that SQ has been visited by two intruders in the past Gyr. The first intruder stripped the individual galaxy ISMs which has supressed star formation and given rise to a diffuse halo. The ongoing high velocity intrusion is responsible for an X-ray shock. The data support the hypothesis that compact groups merge much more slowly than predicted by many dynamical models.

 

Date: 
21/03/2001 - 13:00
Speaker: 
Jack Sulentic
Filiation: 
University of Alabama


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