Galaxy Cluster Spotted With NASA Telescopes

NASA astronomers recently discovered a giant cluster of galaxies in a distant part of the universe by using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The galaxy cluster was located 8.5 billion light years away.

"Based on our understanding of how galaxy clusters grow from the very beginning of our universe, this cluster should be one of the five most massive in existence at that time," said Peter Eisenhardt, co-author of the study, in a news release. Eisenhardt is the project scientist for WISE at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The newly discovered cluster is called Massive Overdense Object (MOO) J1142+1527.

It is relatively easy for infrared space telescopes to identify distant galaxies. When the Spitzer Space Telescope spots remote galaxies, they usually appear as red dots while closer galaxies appear white, according to the researchers.  

"It's the combination of Spitzer and WISE that lets us go from a quarter billion objects down to the most massive galaxy clusters in the sky," said Anthony Gonzalez lead author of a new study, from the University of Florida.

The researchers are planning to study an additional 1,700 galaxy clusters.

"Once we find the most massive clusters, we can start to investigate how galaxies evolved in these extreme environments," Gonzalez said.

This study was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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