What Is A Halo – Burning Issues

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WHAT JUST HAPPENED

The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation.
The Hubble telescope was built by the United States space agency NASA with contributions from the European Space Agency.

James Webb Space Telescope
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or “Webb”) is a space telescope that is planned to succeed the Hubble Space Telescope as NASA’s flagship astrophysics mission.

In a landmark study, scientists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have mapped the immense envelope of gas, called a halo, surrounding the Andromeda galaxy, our nearest large galactic neighbour.
Scientists were surprised to find that this tenuous, nearly invisible halo of diffuse plasma extends 1.3 million light-years from the galaxy—about halfway to our Milky Way—and as far as 2 million light-years in some directions. This means that Andromeda’s halo is already bumping into the halo of our own galaxy.

Since scientists cannot determine the signature of our own galaxy’s halo because we live inside it, the halos of Andromeda might give them some insight as the two galaxies are likely to be similar.
This isn’t this first time that scientists will study gaseous halo. They have researched the halos of galaxies far away from us, but those galaxies are said to be smaller on the sky, so the halo of Andromeda might give them extensive details.