Galaxy Clusters tagged posts

Massive galaxy cluster MACS J0416 seen in X-rays (blue), visible light (red, green, and blue), and radio light (pink). Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/G.Ogrean/STScI/NRAO/AUI/NSF.

Researchers have discovered 4 of the most distant clusters of galaxies ever found, as they appeared when the universe was only 4 billion years old. This sample is now providing the best measurement yet of when and how fast galaxy clusters stop forming stars in the early universe. Clusters are rare regions of the universe consisting of hundreds of galaxies containing trillions of stars, as well as hot gas and mysterious dark matter. Spectroscopic observations from the ground using W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the Very Large Telescope in Chile confirmed the four candidates to be massive clusters...

The Fornax Galaxy Cluster is one of the closest of such groupings beyond our Local Group of galaxies. This new VLT Survey Telescope image shows the central part of the cluster in great detail. At the lower-right is the elegant barred-spiral galaxy NGC 1365 and to the left the big elliptical NGC 1399. Credit: ESO. Acknowledgement: Aniello Grado and Luca Limatola

Clusters can contain anything between about 100 and 1000 galaxies and can be between about 5 and 30 million light-years across. Galaxy clusters do not come in neatly defined shapes so it is difficult to determine exactly where they begin and end. However, astronomers have estimated that the centre of the Fornax Cluster is in the region of 65 million light-years from Earth...

This illustration shows the locations and energy ranges of ASTRO-H science instruments and their associated telescopes. One keV equals 1,000 electron volts, which is hundreds of times the energy of visible light. Credits: JAXA/NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Black hole enthusiasts, galaxy cluster aficionados, and X-ray astronomers have much to be excited about. On Feb. 12, JAXA will be launching their 6th satellite dedicated to X-ray astronomy, ASTRO-H, from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima, Japan. The observatory carries a state-of-the-art instrument and 2 telescope mirrors built at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The launch is at 3:45 a.m. EST.

ASTRO-H is expected to provide breakthroughs in a wide variety of high-energy phenomena in the cosmos, ran...