Daily Image
01-12-2022
Colloquium: The MeerKAT Fornax Survey: ubiquitous HI tails and clouds in the Fornax cluster
| Submitter: | Paolo Serra |
| Description: | I will show first science results from the MeerKAT Fornax Survey. Our goal is to perform a detailed study of the nearby Fornax galaxy cluster in order to understand how galaxies lose their cold gas and stop forming stars in the densest regions of the cosmic web. We are doing so through very deep (down to ~1e+18/cm^2) and high resolution (up to ~ 1kpc and 1 km/s) MeerKAT observations of HI gas in a 1x2 Mpc^2 region centred on the Fornax cluster. Our survey started in October 2020 and is now 50% complete. These first data focus on the central region of the Fornax cluster and reveal for the first time the ubiquitous presence of tails and clouds of HI. Some of the HI is clearly being removed from Fornax galaxies as they interact with one another, with the intra-cluster medium and/or with the large-scale gravitational potential. I will elaborate on these results in combination with recent observations of Fornax at other wavelengths. The new MeerKAT data paint a completely new picture of the Fornax cluster. They demonstrate to what extent a significant leap forward in sensitivity and resolution can impact our understanding of astrophysical systems. |
| Copyright: | Paolo Serra @ INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari |
| Tweet |  |