Submitting Campus
Daytona Beach
Department
Physical Sciences
Document Type
Article
Publication/Presentation Date
Summer 8-28-1998
Abstract/Description
It has been suspected for nearly 50 years that clusters of galaxies contain a population of intergalactic stars, ripped from galaxies during cluster formation or when the galaxies’ orbits take them through the cluster center. Support for the existence of such a population of free-floating stars comes from measurements of the diffuse light in clusters and from recent detections of planetary nebulae with positions and/or velocities far removed from any observed cluster galaxy. 10 , 11 But estimates for the mass of the diffuse population and its distribution relative to the galaxies are still highly uncertain. Here we report the direct detection of intergalactic stars in deep images of a blank field in the Virgo Cluster. The data suggest that approximately 10% of the stellar mass of the cluster is in intergalactic stars. We observe a relatively homogeneous distribution of stars, with evidence of a slight gradient toward M87.
Publication Title
Nature
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/35087
Publisher
Springer Nature Publishing
Scholarly Commons Citation
Ferguson, H. C., von Hippel, T., & Tanvir, N. R. (1998). Detection of Intergalactic Red-Giant-Branch Stars in the Virgo Cluster. Nature, 391(). https://doi.org/10.1038/35087
Additional Information
Dr. von Hippel was not affiliated with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University at the time this paper was published.