Chandra Release - March 4, 2014

Visual Description: ESO 137-001

The image features a spiral galaxy named ESO 137-001, which is dominated by shades of blue, creating a stunning contrast against a starry background. To some, ESO 137-001 may look like a dandelion caught in a breeze in this composite image from Chandra and Hubble.  The spiral galaxy is zooming toward the upper left of this image. The spiral plows through a seething intra-cluster gas rapidly so that much of its own gas is caught and torn away.  The galaxy's stars remain intact due to the binding force of their gravity.  Tattered threads of gas are shown as blue jellyfish-tendrils dripping below the galaxy like a wide piece of blue ribbon on a spiral shaped kite. Ram pressure has strung this gas away from its home in the spiral galaxy and out over intergalactic space. Once there, these strips of gas have erupted with young, massive stars, which are pumping out ultraviolet light seen as vivid blues.  A brown, smoky region near the center of the spiral is being pushed in a similar manner, although in this case it is small dust particles, and not gas, which are being dragged backwards by the intra-cluster medium. From a star-forming perspective, ESO 137-001 really is spreading its seeds into space like a dandelion in the wind. The stripped gas is forming stars. The image is also decorated with hundreds of stars from within the Milky Way. Though not connected in the slightest to ESO 137-001, these stars and two reddish elliptical galaxies in the field of view contribute to a vibrant celestial vista.