Andrew Fabian at the U.K.'s University of Cambridge and colleagues analyzed images of the streamers captured by the Hubble Space Telescope and proposed that the galaxy's large but delicate filaments are held together by magnetic fields.

"The pressure of that magnetic field is comparable to the pressure of the hot gas surrounding it," Fabian said. The field stops the filaments from collapsing under their own gravity and stops hot gas from evaporating the cold streamers.

Further understanding of how the streamers stay together could provide a model for studying other distant young galaxies, which often appear to be surrounded by such filaments, Fabian added.