PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Milky Way-like galaxy M83 consumes high-speed clouds

Unusually fast clouds of gas around nearby galaxy suggest extragalactic origin

2025-07-02
(Press-News.org)

Researchers discover high-velocity clouds in the nearby spiral galaxy M83. These clouds are moving at speeds significantly different to the galaxy’s overall speed of rotation. The findings suggest that these clouds likely originated outside the galaxy, offering new insights into how galaxies acquire fresh gas and sustain star formation over billions of years. This hints at how our own galaxy evolved and may evolve in the future.

Maki Nagata is a graduate student and astronomer at the University of Tokyo’s Institute of Astronomy. Recently, she and her colleagues were trying to solve a long-standing question in astronomy: “How do galaxies manage to sustain star formation for billions of years?” The reason for asking this being, when you look at a galaxy such as our own Milky Way, it’s estimated that star formation should cease within about a billion years, yet it’s still going on. This suggested to Nagata’s team that there must be additional sources of matter constantly feeding galaxies, so they set out to find them.

“Gas clouds are a common feature of galaxies. Some are classed as high-velocity clouds (HVCs) and we suspected these might account for some of this galactic feeding material,” said Nagata. “What makes HVCs special is that their speed and direction don’t correspond to the general speed of rotation or the orientation of a typical spiral galaxy. This alone doesn’t necessarily mean they come from outside the host galaxy, though one scenario is that they start as material ejected by supernova, exploding stars. But we thought with the right analysis and reasoning, we could tell if at least some HVCs were from outside the galaxy.”

Identifying and verifying many clouds, including the HVCs, was one of the major challenges of the study. They had to carefully tune the detection parameters to ensure that real signals stood out clearly from background noise without missing genuine clouds. HVCs were then defined as clouds moving at least 50 kilometers per second faster or slower than the rotation of the galactic disk. Of the 10 clouds that met this criterion, only one coincided with the position of a known supernova remnant. The remaining nine could not be accounted for by supernovas or other local processes. Their kinetic energies also exceeded the levels expected from supernova ejecta, indicating that these clouds may have originated from outside the galaxy and are currently falling into it.

“Our results show that galaxies are not isolated but constantly interact with their surroundings. The discovery of HVCs falling into M83 suggests that galaxies can grow by accreting gas from the space around them, possibly from smaller neighboring galaxies or the intergalactic medium,” said Nagata. “While HVCs are typically low-density atomic hydrogen gas, something that surprised us in this study was that the clouds were found to be compact and made of dense molecular gas, exactly the type of gas that forms new stars. This suggests that the inflowing material may be directly connected to future star formation.”

As M83 is similar to the Milky Way, studying how HVCs influence star formation could tell us about our own distant past or far future. However, although HVCs were first discovered in the Milky Way, it’s hard to measure key properties about them for long-term projections, such as their distances, masses and motions. This is because we are inside our own galaxy; hence, why a nearby galaxy was chosen instead.

“Our next steps include investigating how these molecular HVCs formed and whether they were once atomic gas,” said Nagata. “By examining their relationship to other gas structures such as neutral atomic hydrogen. We will also explore whether these inflowing clouds could trigger new star formation when they collide with the galaxy’s disk. This would finally help answer the outstanding question we asked ourselves before.”

###

Journal: Maki Nagata, Fumi Egusa, Fumiya Maeda, Kazuki Tokuda, Kotaro Kohno, Kana Morokuma-Matsui, and Jin Koda, “High-Velocity Molecular Clouds in M83”, The Astrophysical Journal, DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/addab7, https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/addab7


Funding: This work was partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI grants JP23K13142, 20H00172, JP23K20035 and JP24H00004. NSF grants AST-2006600 and AST-2406608. NAOJ ALMA Scientific Research grant 2022-22B. ALMA Japan Research Grant of NAOJ ALMA Project, NAOJ-ALMA-355.

 

Useful links:

Graduate School of Science - https://www.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/

Institute of Astronomy - https://www.ioa.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/  


Research Contacts:

Associate Professor Fumi Egusa

Institute of Astronomy, The University of Tokyo,

2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-0015, JAPAN
fegusa@ioa.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Press contact:
Mr. Rohan Mehra
Public Relations Group, The University of Tokyo,
7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8656, Japan
press-releases.adm@gs.mail.u-tokyo.ac.jp
 

About The University of Tokyo:

The University of Tokyo is Japan's leading university and one of the world's top research universities. The vast research output of some 6,000 researchers is published in the world's top journals across the arts and sciences. Our vibrant student body of around 15,000 undergraduate and 15,000 graduate students includes over 5,000 international students. Find out more at www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/ or follow us on X (formerly Twitter) at @UTokyo_News_en.

END



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Study: What we learned from record-breaking 2021 heat wave and what we can expect in the future

2025-07-02
The deadly, record-breaking heat wave that hit the Pacific Northwest in June 2021 continues to be the subject of intense interest among scientists, policy makers and the public. A new study from some of the region's top climate scientists synthesized more than 70 publications addressing the causes and consequences of the extreme heat wave and the potential for similar high-heat events to happen in the future. "It's still the event of interest for anyone who studies heat waves or the atmospheric patterns that cause them," says Paul Loikith, associate professor of geography ...

Transforming treatment outcomes for people with OCD

2025-07-02
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) impacts approximately 2% of the global population, often preventing individuals from living life to their full potential. The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) invites the public to a free webinar, “Transforming Treatment Outcomes for People with OCD” on Tuesday, July 8, 2025, at 2:00 pm ET. In this talk, Helen Blair Simpson, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University / New York State Psychiatric Institute and Director of the Anxiety Disorders Clinic, will explore how research can transform outcomes for those living with OCD. She will discuss clinical trials that ...

Damage from smoke and respiratory viruses mitigated in mice via a common signaling pathway

2025-07-02
A rare cell in the lining of lungs is fundamental to the organwide response necessary to repair damage from toxins like those in wildfire smoke or respiratory viruses, Stanford Medicine researchers and their colleagues have found. A similar process occurs in the pancreas, where the cells, called neuroendocrine cells, initiate a biological cascade that protects insulin-producing pancreatic islet cells from damage. Treating the airways of mice with an experimental drug that activates the repair pathway protected their airways from damage after infection with influenza or ...

New software tool could help better understand childhood cancer

2025-07-01
New cutting-edge software developed in Melbourne can help uncover how the most common heart tumour in children forms and changes. And the technology has the potential to further our understanding of other childhood diseases, according to a new study. The research, led by Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and published in Genome Biology, found the software, VR-Omics, can identify previously undetected cell activities of cardiac rhabdomyoma, a type of benign heart tumour. Developed by MCRI’s Professor Mirana Ramialison, VR-Omics is the first tool capable of analysing and visualising data in both ...

Healthy lifestyle linked to lower diverticulitis risk, irrespective of genetic susceptibility

2025-07-01
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle—specifically, a diet rich in fibre but light on red/processed meat, regular exercise, not smoking, and sticking to a normal weight—is linked to a significantly lower risk of diverticulitis, finds a large long term study, published online in the journal Gut. What’s more, these 5 components seem to offset the effects of inherited genes, the findings indicate. Diverticulitis occurs when ‘pouches’ develop along the gut and become inflamed or infected in the wall of the large intestine (colon), explain the researchers. It’s a common cause of hospital admissions and a major reason for emergency colon surgery, they add. Genetic ...

Women 65+ still at heightened risk of cervical cancer caused by HPV

2025-07-01
Women aged 65 and above are still at heightened risk of cervical cancer caused by human papillomavirus (HPV), suggest the findings of a large observational study published in the open access journal Gynecology and Obstetrics Clinical Medicine. But most guidelines currently recommend discontinuing screening for the disease in women aged 65+ if they have had previously normal smear tests. Yet global cases of cervical cancer have been rising among women in this age group, prompting the researchers to call for a policy rethink. Recent data from the World Health Organization indicate that ...

‘Inflammatory’ diet during pregnancy may raise child’s diabetes type 1 risk

2025-07-01
A diet high in foods with the potential to promote low grade inflammation during pregnancy may raise that child’s risk of developing type 1 diabetes, suggests Danish research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. This dietary pattern was associated with a 16% heightened risk for every unit increase in a dietary measure of inflammatory food intake, the findings show. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disorder characterised by the destruction of insulin-producing β-cells in the pancreas, necessitating lifelong ...

Effective therapies needed to halt rise in eco-anxiety, says psychology professor

2025-07-01
More must be done to address the growth in anxiety related to climate change, says a leading psychologist, before it becomes the next mental health crisis. In his book Understanding Climate Anxiety, Geoff Beattie documents how climate anxiety is on the rise, especially amongst young people. Yet support is limited and sufferers face stigma because of the polarised debate around whether the climate crisis even exists, he says. Understanding Climate Anxiety offers psychological tips and guidance ...

Nature-friendly farming boosts biodiversity and yields but may require new subsidies

2025-07-01
Farming methods that support nature improve both biodiversity and crop yields but more extensive measures may require increased government subsidies to become as profitable as conventional intensive agriculture. That is the finding of the first comprehensive on-farm trials of their kind in the UK, which were led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) and Rothamsted Research. This four-year study across 17 conventional, commercial farms in southern England not only trialled various agroecological methods but also – for the first time – the financial viability for businesses. It showed that incorporating nature-friendly practices within farming – agroecology ...

Against the odds: Endometriosis linked to four times higher pregnancy rates than other causes of infertility, new study reveals

2025-07-01
(Paris, France, Wednesday, 2 July 2025) A landmark 30-year study of over four million women in England has revealed that women with endometriosis-associated infertility are significantly more likely to become pregnant compared to those with infertility from other causes.[1] Presented today at the 41st Annual Meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE), the findings offer renewed optimism for millions of women living with endometriosis who are hoping to conceive.   Endometriosis is a long-term ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

A map for single-atom catalysts

What about tritiated water release from Fukushima? Ocean model simulations provide an objective scientific knowledge on the long-term tritium distribution

Growing crisis of communicable disease in Canada in tandem with US cuts

Women get better at managing their anger as they age

Illegal shark product trade evident in Australia and New Zealand

New search tool brings 21% better accuracy for robotics developers

New model extracts sentence-level proof to verify events, boosting fact-checking accuracy for journalists, legal teams, and policymakers

Efficient carbon integration of CO₂ in propane aromatization over acidic zeolites

FPGA-accelerated AI for demultiplexing multimode fiber towards next-generation communications

Vitamin D3 nanoemulsion significantly improves core symptoms in children with autism: A clinical trial

Microfluidic point-of-care device accurately measures bilirubin in blood serum: A pilot study

Amygdalin shows strong binding and stabilizing effects on HER2 receptor: A computational study for breast cancer therapy

Bond behavior of FRP bars in concrete under reversed cyclic loading: an experimental study

Milky Way-like galaxy M83 consumes high-speed clouds

Study: What we learned from record-breaking 2021 heat wave and what we can expect in the future

Transforming treatment outcomes for people with OCD

Damage from smoke and respiratory viruses mitigated in mice via a common signaling pathway

New software tool could help better understand childhood cancer

Healthy lifestyle linked to lower diverticulitis risk, irrespective of genetic susceptibility

Women 65+ still at heightened risk of cervical cancer caused by HPV

‘Inflammatory’ diet during pregnancy may raise child’s diabetes type 1 risk

Effective therapies needed to halt rise in eco-anxiety, says psychology professor

Nature-friendly farming boosts biodiversity and yields but may require new subsidies

Against the odds: Endometriosis linked to four times higher pregnancy rates than other causes of infertility, new study reveals

Microplastics discovered in human reproductive fluids, new study reveals

Family ties and firm performance: How cousin marriage traditions shape informal businesses in Africa

Novel flu vaccine adjuvant improves protection against influenza viruses, study finds

Manipulation of light at the nanoscale helps advance biosensing

New mechanism discovered in ovarian cancer peritoneal metastasis: YWHAB restriction drives stemness and chemoresistance

New study links blood metabolites and immune cells to increased risk of urolithiasis

[Press-News.org] Milky Way-like galaxy M83 consumes high-speed clouds
Unusually fast clouds of gas around nearby galaxy suggest extragalactic origin