Alone on a wide wide sea. The origin of SECCO 1, an isolated star-forming gas cloud in the Virgo cluster

TL;DR

SECCO 1 is an isolated, young, star-forming gas cloud in the Virgo cluster, whose origin and survival are studied through multi-wavelength observations and hydrodynamical simulations, revealing its extreme isolation and potential longevity.

Contribution

This study combines spectroscopic, imaging, and simulation data to investigate the origin, age, and survival of SECCO 1, an isolated star-forming gas cloud in the Virgo cluster, providing new insights into its nature.

Findings

SECCO 1 is approximately 4 million years old.

Only one new HII region candidate was identified around SECCO 1.

Hydrodynamical simulations suggest the cloud can survive over 1 Gyr in the cluster environment.

Abstract

SECCO1 is an extremely dark, low-mass (M_star=10^5 M_sun), star-forming stellar system lying in the Low Velocity Cloud (LVC) substructure of the Virgo cluster of galaxies, and hosting several HII regions. Here we review our knowledge of this remarkable system, and present the results of (a) additional analysis of our panoramic spectroscopic observations with MUSE, (b) the combined analysis of Hubble Space Telescope and MUSE data, and (c) new narrow-band observations obtained with OSIRIS@GTC to search for additional HII regions in the surroundings of the system. We provide new evidence supporting an age as young as 4 Myr for the stars that are currently ionising the gas in SECCO1. We identify only one new promising candidate HII region possibly associated with SECCO1, thus confirming the extreme isolation of the system. We also identify three additional candidate pressure-supported dark clouds in Virgo among the targets of the SECCO survey. Various possible hypotheses for the nature and origin of SECCO1 are considered and discussed, also with the help of dedicated hydrodynamical simulations showing that a hydrogen cloud with the characteristics of SECCO1 can likely survive for >1 Gyr while traveling within the LVC Intra Cluster Medium.