Mixing up gas in the wake of a strangled satellite

Mixing up gas in the wake of a strangled satellite

Most simulations to date have implied that satellite galaxies traveling through galaxy clusters are stripped of gas for future star formation in a process known as “strangulation”. In contrast, the authors of this paper suggest that satellite galaxies may not be as cut off as some might think: instead, their simulations show that the cooler, stripped gas from the corona will mix with the surrounding intra-cluster medium and remain near the original galaxy as a potential new source of star-forming fuel.