Bibcode
Correnti, M.; Testa, V.; Coccato, L.; Ibata, R.; Calura, F.; Martin, N. F.; de Zeeuw, P. T.; Fraternali, F.; Battaglia, G.; Beccari, G.; Cresci, G.; Magrini, L.; Perina, S.; Armillotta, L.; Bellazzini, M.
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 476, Issue 4, p.4565-4583
Advertised on:
6
2018
Citations
19
Refereed citations
16
Description
SECCO 1 is an extremely dark, low-mass (M⋆ ≃
105 M⊙), star-forming stellar system lying in
the low-velocity cloud (LVC) substructure of the Virgo cluster of
galaxies, and hosting several H II regions. Here, we review our
knowledge of this remarkable system, and present the results of (a)
additional analysis of our panoramic spectroscopic observations with
MUSE, (b) the combined analysis of Hubble Space Telescope and MUSE data,
and (c) new narrow-band observations obtained with OSIRIS@GTC to search
for additional H II regions in the surroundings of the system. We
provide new evidence supporting an age as young as ≲ 4 Myr for the
stars that are currently ionizing the gas in SECCO 1. We identify only
one new promising candidate H II region possibly associated with SECCO
1, thus confirming the extreme isolation of the system. We also identify
three additional candidate pressure-supported dark clouds in Virgo among
the targets of the SECCO survey. Various possible hypotheses for the
nature and origin of SECCO 1 are considered and discussed, also with the
help of dedicated hydrodynamical simulations showing that a hydrogen
cloud with the characteristics of SECCO 1 can likely survive for ≳
1 Gyr while travelling within the LVC Intra Cluster Medium.
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Galaxy formation and evolution is a fundamental Astrophysical problem. Its study requires “travelling back in time”, for which there are two complementary approaches. One is to analyse galaxy properties as a function of red-shift. Our team focuses on the other approach, called “Galactic Archaeology”. It is based on the determination of galaxy
Matteo
Monelli