The Magellanic Corona as the key to the formation of the Magellanic Stream

S. Lucchini, E. D’Onghia (), A. J. Fox, C. Bustard, J. Bland-Hawthorn and E. Zweibel
Additional contact information
S. Lucchini: University of Wisconsin-Madison
E. D’Onghia: University of Wisconsin-Madison
A. J. Fox: AURA for ESA, Space Telescope Science Institute
C. Bustard: University of Wisconsin-Madison
J. Bland-Hawthorn: University of Sydney
E. Zweibel: University of Wisconsin-Madison

Nature, 2020, vol. 585, issue 7824, 203-206

Abstract: Abstract The dominant gaseous structure in the Galactic halo is the Magellanic Stream. This extended network of neutral and ionized filaments surrounds the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), the two most massive satellite galaxies of the Milky Way1–4. Recent observations indicate that the LMC and SMC are on their first passage around the Galaxy5, that the Magellanic Stream is made up of gas stripped from both clouds2,6,7 and that the majority of this gas is ionized8,9. Although it has long been suspected that tidal forces10,11 and ram-pressure stripping12,13 contributed to the formation of the Magellanic Stream, models have not been able to provide a full understanding of its origins3. Several recent developments—including the discovery of dwarf galaxies associated with the Magellanic group14–16, determination of the high mass of the LMC17, detection of highly ionized gas near stars in the LMC18,19 and predictions of cosmological simulations20,21—support the existence of a halo of warm (roughly 500,000 kelvin) ionized gas around the LMC (the ‘Magellanic Corona’). Here we report that, by including this Magellanic Corona in hydrodynamic simulations of the Magellanic Clouds falling onto the Milky Way, we can reproduce the Magellanic Stream and its leading arm. Our simulations explain the filamentary structure, spatial extent, radial-velocity gradient and total ionized-gas mass of the Magellanic Stream. We predict that the Magellanic Corona will be unambiguously observable via high-ionization absorption lines in the ultraviolet spectra of background quasars lying near the LMC.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2663-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:585:y:2020:i:7824:d:10.1038_s41586-020-2663-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2663-4

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().