The El Gordo Massive Galaxy Cluster
Explanation:
It is bigger than a bread box.
In fact, it is much bigger than all
bread boxes put together.
Galaxy cluster
ACT-CL J0102-4915 is one of the largest and most massive objects known.
Dubbed "El Gordo", the seven billion light years
(
z = 0.87) distant galaxy cluster
spans about seven million
light years
and holds the mass of a million billion Suns.
The
above image of
El Gordo is a composite of a
visible light image from the
Hubble Space Telescope, an
X-ray image from the
Chandra Observatory showing the hot gas in pink, and a computer generated map
showing the most probable distribution of
dark matter in blue, computed
from
gravitational lens distortions
of background galaxies.
Almost all of the bright spots are galaxies.
The
blue dark matter distribution indicates that the
cluster is in the middle stages of a collision between two large
galaxy clusters.
A careful inspection of the image will reveal a nearly vertical galaxy that appears
unusually long.
That galaxy is actually far in the background and has its
image stretched by the
gravitational lens action of the massive cluster.
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Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
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NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
