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

00:00 [ music ]

00:04 Visit Chandra's beautiful universe.

00:08 Able 2256.

00:12 Astronomers have captured a spectacular and ongoing collision

00:16 between at least three galaxy clusters.

00:20 Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory,

00:24 ESO's XMM-Newton, and a trio of radio telescopes

00:28 have this jumbled scene. Galaxy clusters are some

00:32 of the largest structures in the universe and contain a mixture of galaxies,

00:36 hot gas, and dark matter.

00:40 Over time, these colossal objects can collide and merge with each other

00:44 through their gravitational pull. This is the main way

00:48 that galaxy clusters can grow into the gigantic cosmic edifices seen

00:52 today. Able 2256

00:56 located 780 million light years from Earth, is a scene where this

01:00 process is taking place. Astronomers studying this object

01:04 are trying to tease out what has led to this unusual looking structure.

01:08 Each telescope tells a different part of the story.

01:12 For example, Chandra and XMM-Newton can see

01:16 the multi-million degree gas from the clusters.

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

01:24 The first are the galaxies themselves, where the

01:28 radio signal is generated by particles blasting away in jets from

01:32 supermassive black holes at their centers. Radio waves are also

01:36 coming from a huge filamentary structure, which was likely generated

01:40 when the collision created shock waves and accelerated particles in the gas.

01:45 Astronomers will continue to study this complex system

01:49 to untangle this knot of galaxy clusters and the details of the

01:53 physics taking place there. This will help us learn more about how

01:57 these cosmic giants came to inhabit the universe today.

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