Space

Hubble Captures A Stunning Image Of Abell S1063, A Deform Cluster Of Galaxies

Elaine Hannah
First Posted: Jul 22, 2016 04:06 AM EDT

Hubble telescope spotted a striking image of Abell S1063, a cluster of galaxies which is located 4 billion light-years away. It contains an estimated 100 million--million solar masses and 51 confirmed galaxies or even more than 400.


The Abell S1063 cluster of galaxies is extremely bright in high-energy X-ray light. This results when the neighboring galaxies merge due to gravity and the infalling gasses collide. These heat the gas, which then releases high-energy X-ray light. The X-ray brightness of the Abell S1063 is one of the clues of the merging of multiple galaxy clusters that humans can observe, according to Frontier Fields.

The National Geographic reports that Abell S1063 stretches about 20 million light-years. It weighs about four quadrillion times more than the sun. The huge mass of Abell S1063 deforms and enlarges the light from galaxies that lie behind. It. This is because of the effect called gravitational lensing.

The image of Abell S1063 is considered one of the features of the Hubble Frontier Fields, which is the three-year, 840-orbit program, begun in 2013. NASA's space observatories such as the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Spitzer Space telescope and the teams Hubble aim to probe the early Universe by examining six different galaxy clusters, according to Science News.

Astronomer George O. Abell in 1958 compiled the Abell Catalogue of galaxy clusters. It contained more than 2,700 galaxy clusters that were observed from the Northern hemisphere. This catalog was updated in 1989 with galaxy clusters from the Southern Hemisphere.

 

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