intracluster stars tagged posts

Hubble finds that Ghost Light among Galaxies Stretches Far Back in Time

These are Hubble Space Telescope images of two massive clusters of galaxies named MOO J1014+0038 (left panel) and SPT-CL J2106-5844 (right panel). The artificially added blue color is translated from Hubble data that captured a phenomenon called intracluster light. This extremely faint glow traces a smooth distribution of light from wandering stars scattered across the cluster. Billions of years ago the stars were shed from their parent galaxies and now drift through intergalactic space.
Credits: NASA, ESA, STScI, James Jee (Yonsei University); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

In giant clusters of hundreds or thousands of galaxies, innumerable stars wander among the galaxies like lost souls, emitting a ghostly haze of light...

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