The cycle of metals in the elliptical galaxy NGC1404

As the building blocks of complex life, metals are an essential component of our Universe. Quite spectacularly, these chemical elements essentially synthesised in (Type Ia and core-core-collapse) supernovae are found not only in stars and their local interstellar medium, but also at Mpc scales, in the hot, X-ray emitting intracluster medium pervading clusters, groups, and elliptical galaxies. Studying the abundance of these metals and their spatial distribution using X-ray spectroscopy is essential to understand the entire chemodynamics of clusters and groups, from their formation till their age of maturity. Here, we focus on very deep XMM-Newton and Chandra observations of NGC1404, an elliptical galaxy plunging toward the center of the Fornax cluster. The intense ram-pressure processes at play on the hot gas of this galaxy makes it an unique target to capture the entire journey of metals at beyond kpc-scales, from its total (gas and stellar) metal budget within the galaxy to the diffusion mechanisms of these elements into the surrounding ICM. We will discuss the unprecedented accurate abundance measurements (overall metallicity and alpha/Fe ratios) of NGC1404 we obtained, both globally and spatially resolved, and interpret them in the context of the chemical history of the galaxy and of the Fornax cluster.