Hubble Highlights Two Galaxies That Are Losing It

Newly released images, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope before the recent Servicing Mission, highlight the ongoing drama in two galaxies in the Virgo Cluster affected by a process known as 'ram pressure stripping', which can result in peculiar-looking galaxies.
An extremely hot X-ray-emitting gas known as the intra-cluster medium lurks between galaxies within clusters. As galaxies move through this intra-cluster medium, strong winds rip through galaxies distorting their shape and even halting star formation.

Ram pressure is the drag force that results when something moves through a fluid - much like the wind you feel in your face when bicycling, even on a still day - and occurs in this context as galaxies orbiting about the centre of the cluster move through the intra-cluster medium, which then sweeps out gas from within the galaxies.

www.spacedaily.com...

Very interesting , I have never herd of this " extremely hot X-ray-emitting gas known as the intra-cluster " before . Truly amazing just what this " intra-cluster" does to Galaxies .

Hubble just keeps on going , delivering us new and mind blowing material on a regular bases .

Could that intra-cluster gas be related to what is called WHIM? (more info in WHIM in this link (Wikipedia))

It is currently only speculated about what really resides in the "outer" or "open" space, and really no one can say for sure... My guess is that this whole dark matter and dark energy things are to be the real challenge, and most probably when we know more will explain much more precisely what is really happening in galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and even super clusters.

Very beautiful picture in any case