This is Scientific Americans 60 Second Science.

I'm Steve Mursky.

Got a minute?

A recently discovered breed of galaxies really caught astronomers attention

because they look like jellyfish. Astronomers found the caught astronomer

found the first jellyfish

found the first jellyfish galaxy a decade ago.

Such a galaxy has a disk of stars like our Milky Way,

plus long blue tendrils. A jellyfish galaxy was once a spiral like the

Milky Way, spawning new stars from its gas and dust. But unlike the Milky Way, a

jellyfish belongs to a cluster of galaxies.

A recent analysis of Hubble telescope images led to the conclusion that extremely hot gas from the cluster is behind the formation of jellyfish. That study is in the astrophysical journal

letters. As the galaxy plows through space this hot gas rips out the galaxy's own

gas and dust forming the long streamers behind the galaxy.

This torn out gas still gives birth to new stars.

The brightest of these newborn stars shine blue,

so the former disk-shaped galaxy metamorphoses into a celestial jellyfish

sporting long blue tendrils.

The galaxy will eventually literally run out of gas, and thus lose the ability to create any more new stars.

Jellyfish in the sea can be deadly but in space the mortally wounded victim is the

Jellyfish Galaxy itself.

Thanks for the minutefish galaxy itself.

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