About Magellanic Bridge:
- It is a stream of stars and gas created by the close encounter of two nearby galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.
- It is mainly a gaseous feature connecting the two galaxies, with a small fraction of in situ formed young stars.
- The MB is believed to be composed of tidally stripped material from the SMC during its last encounter with the LMC, approximately 200-300 Myr ago.
- Significance:
- Magellanic Bridge can help us understand how close encounters between galaxies influence the way binary stars form, evolve and survive.
- Researchers will be able to compare stellar evolution in the Bridge with that in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, and gain a clearer picture of how interactions between neighbouring galaxies shape their stars over time.
Key Features of eROSITA X-ray Telescope:
- eROSITA (extended ROentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array) is a wide-field X-ray telescope on-boarded the Russian-German "Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma" (SRG) observatory.
- It was developed under the leadership of the Max-Planck Institute for extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Germany (DE).
- eROSITA is a sensitive X-ray telescope capable of delivering deep, sharp images over very large areas of the sky in the energy range ~0.2-8 keV.
- It is placed in a halo orbit around the L2 point.
- Function: It has been performing an all-sky survey, in which the whole celestial sphere is mapped once every six months.
