Telescopes Paint Stunning View Of Galaxy Cluster With Black Hole Jets

Space.com

Views of a massive galaxy cluster Abell 2256 have been captured by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, ESA’s XMM-Newton and three radio telescopes (LOFAR, the GMRT and the VLA). See a composite of all the views here.   Credit: NASA/CXC/A. Hobart

Transcript

00:00Visit Chandra's beautiful universe.

00:05Abel 2256

00:10Astronomers have captured a spectacular and ongoing collision between at least three galaxy clusters.

00:17Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory,

00:21ESO's XMM-Newton,

00:23and a trio of radio telescopes

00:25are helping astronomers sort out what is happening in this jumbled scene.

00:30Galaxy clusters are some of the largest structures in the universe

00:34and contain a mixture of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter.

00:40Over time, these colossal objects can collide and merge with each other through their gravitational pull.

00:47This is the main way that galaxy clusters can grow into the gigantic cosmic edifices seen today.

00:54Abel 2256, located 780 million light-years from Earth,

00:59is a scene where this process is taking place.

01:03Astronomers studying this object are trying to tease out what has led to this unusual-looking structure.

01:09Each telescope tells a different part of the story.

01:13For example, Chandra and XMM-Newton can see the multi-million degree gas from the clusters.

01:20The radio emission in this system arises from an even more complex set of sources.

01:26The first are the galaxies themselves,

01:29where the radio signal is generated by particles blasting away in jets from supermassive black holes at their centers.

01:36Radio waves are also coming from a huge filamentary structure,

01:40which was likely generated when the collision created shock waves and accelerated particles in the gas.

01:46Astronomers will continue to study this complex system to untangle this knot of galaxy clusters

01:52and the details of the physics taking place there.

01:55This will help us learn more about how these cosmic giants came to inhabit the universe today.

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