Frontier Fields: Hubble Captures Stunning New Image Of Abell 370

First Posted: May 05, 2017 04:30 AM EDT
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NASA/ESA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken an image of the stunning Abell 370. This is part of the Frontier Fields program.

Hubble telescope has used about 630 hours observing time with over 560 orbits of the planet Earth in capturing images of galaxies including Abell 370 and other five clusters of galaxies. It examined at six "parallel fields" and the areas near the galaxy cluster. The parallel field and the cluster were imaged in infrared light by the Wide Field Camera 10 (WFC3) and by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), according to Hubble Space Telescope.

The five other clusters of galaxies that were imaged in exquisite detail are Abell S1063, MACS J0717,5+3745, MACS J0416.1-2403, Abell 2744 and MACS J1149.5+2223. Abell 370, which had an earlier image that was published in 2009, was also captured in detail, according to Sci-NewsAbell 370 consists of hundred galaxies. It is about 6 billion light-years away in the constellation Cetus or also referred to as the Sea Monster. Astronomers could study these massive galaxy clusters such as Abell 370 with those images. They could gauge the distribution of normal and dark matter within such clusters.

The scientists identified that Abell 370 has two large, separate clumps of dark matter. This contributes to the proof that this huge galaxy cluster is the result of two smaller clusters that have been merging together.

The massive luminous arc in the lower left of the image is an astrophysical phenomenon that is the gravitationally lensed image of a galaxy twice as far away as the cluster. This arc consists of two distorted images of an ordinary spiral galaxy that lies behind the cluster.

Meanwhile, the Frontier Fields is a program that utilizes massive galaxy clusters to examine and investigate the mysteries of dark matter and the very early Universe. It generates observations of the galaxy clusters and the galaxies behind them. These help the astronomers in understanding how stars and galaxies come into being in the Universe.

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