Telescopes Paint Stunning View Of Galaxy Cluster With Black Hole Jets
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
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.