Fimbulthul is a tidal stellar stream torn off from Omega Centauri, the largest globular cluster of our Milky Way galaxy. The stream contains 309 known stars stretching over 18° in the constellations of Hydra and Centaurus, matching the same age as the globular cluster. Omega Centauri is thought to be the nucleus of a dwarf galaxy that merged with the Milky Way.1
The stream was discovered in the Gaia DR2 star database that determined the direction, distances and motion of over one billion stars.2
The name Fimbulthul is a river in Norse mythology.
References
References
- Noyola, Eva; Gebhardt, Karl; Bergmann, Marcel (2008). "Gemini and Hubble Space Telescope Evidence for an Intermediate Mass Black Hole in omega Centauri". The Astrophysical Journal. 676 (2): 1008. arXiv:0801.2782. Bibcode:2008ApJ...676.1008N. doi:10.1086/529002. S2CID 208867075.
- Catastrophic tale of the most massive globular cluster of the Milky Way Archived 2019-05-03 at the Wayback Machine Khyati Malhan, Apr 23, 2019
- Identification of the long stellar stream of the prototypical massive globular cluster ω Centauri Nature Astronomy (2019)
- Preprint at arxiv.org Rodrigo Ibata, Michele Bellazzini, Khyati Malhan, Nicolas Martin, Paolo Bianchini, 2019
- The Streams of the Gaping Abyss: A population of entangled stellar streams surrounding the Inner Galaxy Rodrigo Ibata, Khyati Malhan, Nicolas Martin, 2019