Water droplet animation and the link to stellar superclusters
This animation from Hubblecast 76 shows how water falls in droplets, rather than a continuous column. It is the same basic physics that caused what is known as “beads on a string” star formation between two merging galaxies in the cluster SDSS J1531+3414.
The only real difference is that the surface tension in the falling water is analogous to gravity in the context of the formation of evenly spaced stellar superclusters. This is a wonderful demonstration that the fundamental laws of physics really are scale-invariant - we see the same physics in rain drops that we do on 100 000 light-year scales.
Credit:ESA/Hubble, NASA, Luis Calçada and Martin Kornmesser.
About the Video
Id: | heic1414d |
Release date: | 10 July 2014, 16:00 |
Related releases: | heic1414 |
Duration: | 20 s |
Frame rate: | 30 fps |
About the Object
Name: | [HGO2008]SDSS J1531+3414 |
Type: | Early Universe : Galaxy : Type : Elliptical Early Universe : Galaxy : Type : Interacting |
Category: | Galaxies |
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