Physics Commons^™

The Energy Source Of The Filaments Around The Giant Galaxy Ngc 1275, A. C. Fabian, J. S. Sanders, R. J. R. Williams, A. Lazarian, Gary J. Ferland, R. M. Johnstone

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

The brightest galaxy in the nearby Perseus cluster, NGC 1275, is surrounded by a network of filaments. These were first observed through their Hα emission but are now known to have a large molecular component with a total mass approaching 10¹¹ M_⊙ of gas. The filaments are embedded in hot intracluster gas and stretch over 80 kpc. They have an unusually low excitation spectrum which is well modelled by collisional heating and ionization by secondary electrons. Here we note that the surface radiative flux from the outer filaments is close to the energy flux impacting on them from …