The dust morphology of the elliptical Galaxy M 86 with SPIRE

We present Herschel-SPIRE observations at 250-500 μm of the giant elliptical galaxy M 86 and examine the distribution of the resolved cold dust emission and its relation with other galactic tracers. The SPIRE images reveal three dust components: emission from the central region; a dust lane extending north-south; and a bright emission feature 10 kpc to the south-east. We estimate that ~10⁶ M_⊙ of dust is spatially coincident with atomic and ionized hydrogen, originating from stripped material from the nearby spiral NGC 4438 due to recent tidal interactions with M 86. The gas-to-dust ratio of the cold gas component ranges from ~20-80. We discuss the different heating mechanisms for the dust features.

Herschel is an ESA space observatory with science instruments provided by European-led Principal Investigator consortia and with important participation from NASA.