Teacher discovers "cosmic ghost"
Wednesday, 06 Aug 2008 12:21
Hanny's Voorwerp and IC 2497
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Researchers believe a Dutch school teacher has discovered a new class of astronomical objects.
Hanny van Arkel came across a mysterious object while using an internet portal – www.galaxyzoo.org - that allows members of the public to take part in astronomy research online.
What she found is a strange, gaseous object with a hole in the centre, which some observers are calling a "cosmis ghost".
Scientists working at telescopes around the world and with satellites in space were asked to take a look at Hanny's Voorwerp (Dutch for 'object') and found that it did not contain any stars but was instead made entirely of extremely hot gas.
The Hubble space telescope is soon to be used to take a closer look.
At present scientists think the object's source of illumination comes from the nearby galaxy IC 2497.
"We think that in the recent past the galaxy IC 2497 hosted an enormously bright quasar," said Yale University astrophysicist Kevin Schawinski.
"Because of the vast scale of the galaxy and the Voorwerp, light from that past still lights up the nearby Voorwerp even though the quasar shut down sometime in the past 100,000 years, and the galaxy's black hole itself has gone quiet."
Professor Bill Keel of the University of Alabama, a galaxyzoo.org team member, commented: "This discovery really shows how citizen science has come of age in the internet world.
"Hanny's attentiveness alerted us not only to a peculiar object, but to a window into the cosmic past which might have eluded us for a long time otherwise.
"Trying to understand the processes operating here has proven to be a fascinating challenge, involving a whole range of astrophysical techniques and instruments around the world and beyond."
Hanny van Arkel said: "It's amazing to think that this object has been sitting in the archives for decades and that amateur volunteers can help by spotting things like this online.
"It was a fantastic present to find out on my 25th birthday that we will get observational time on the Hubble Space Telescope to follow-up this discovery."