HI in Fornax with MeerKAT

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MeerKAT commissioning observations have resulted in the detection of two previously unknown extended tails of HI in the Fornax cluster around NGC 1316. The data were taken as part of commissioning for the Fornax Large Survey Project led by Paolo Serra (INAF, Sardinia, Italy) and which includes ASTRON astronomers Erwin de Blok and Tom Oosterloo.

NGC 1316 is visible at the centre of the image. The green blobs represent neutral hydrogen gas detected with MeerKAT within and around the galaxy. The two long hydrogen tails are highlighted by the thin curved arcs and partly correspond with optical tidal tails. This discovery solves a long-standing puzzle on the gas-content of the merger that formed NGC 1316. HI is visible also in a few clouds within and around the galaxy, as well as in three satellite galaxies.

The visible light image in the background is from the Fornax Deep Survey, a Dutch-Italian collaboration led by the University of Groningen and INAF (Naples), and was obtained with the VST telescope at the European Southern Observatory.

The results are published in A&A (2019, in press) and can also be found at https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.08265

More information on the MeerKAT Fornax LSP can be found at

https://sites.google.com/inaf.it/meerkatfornaxsurvey