NASA’s Chandra captured a sweet view of many galaxy clusters and they look like blue fireworks in space.
Astronomers used data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and other big telescopes to create a map of this mega-cluster of galaxies. These four galaxy clusters, which each have a higher mass than the sun, will eventually collide to form a giant hub in the universe.
According to NASA, galaxy clusters are very large structures in space held together by gravity. Thousands of galaxies are embedded in hot gas, have invisible dark matter, and create these mega-clusters, like the one above.
Chandra’s observations show a mega-cluster forming in Abell 1758, which is located roughly three billion light-years from our planet. This massive structure contains two pairs of merging galaxy clusters that are moving toward each other. Back in 2004, Abell 1758 was recognized as a quadruple galaxy cluster system with data from Chandra and XMM-Newton, a European Space Agency (ESA)-operated satellite.
News! A mega-merger of 4 galaxy clusters in Abell 1758 has been observed by Chandra & other telescopes. Abell 1758 contains two pairs of galaxy clusters, each with hundreds of galaxies embedded in large amounts of hot gas & unseen dark matter. pic.twitter.com/mUkGFPwCMs
— Kim Kowal Arcand (@kimberlykowal) October 24, 2019
The system above is a hotbed for merging activity: Each pair has two galaxy clusters that are on a collision path: in the northern (top) pair, the heart of each galaxy cluster has already swung by each other once approximately 300 to 400 million years ago. Eventually, they will approach each other again, while the southern pair at the bottom has two clusters that will “bump” into one another for a first meeting.
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