Astrophysicists
at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) have collected data from a
variety of devices to generate a stunning compound image of crashing galaxy
clusters mutually identified as MACS J0717. MACS J0717 is about 5.4 billion
light years away from Earth in the Auriga constellation. The composite makes
this the record well-studied galaxy cluster, and the photo was issued at the
224th Meeting of the American
Astronomical Society. The background of this stunning image was taken by
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and captures wavelength spectra covering near
ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared. The blue light in the image characterizes
x-ray wavelengths, captured by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Radio waves are displayed
in red, and were made by NRAO’s Very Large Array.
Image Credit: Van Weeren, et al.; Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF; NASA.
The
blue and red areas symbolize several of the most sensitive images ever
collected by these instruments, and the radio waves exposed outcomes that were pretty
amazing. The lined red region with a light-colored dot in the mid is essentially
a black hole with jets of particles being blast out in both directions. The rough
red region in the lower left corner is supposed to be a radio galaxy being drained
into this powerful cluster of collisions.
The
distorted red area is the most thrilling, as it is assumed to specify particles
that interrelate with magnetic fields throughout the collisions, with radio
waves being released as a consequence. Astrophysicist Reinout van Weeren of the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics told NRAO "The complex shape
of this region is unique; we've never spotted anything like this before. The
shape probably is the result of the multiple ongoing collisions.” MACS J0717 is one of the hugest and massive
known galaxy clusters, creating it a general aim for astronomers. Its size and
distance also marks it the major known gravitational lens, which can curve
light round it and is very beneficial when studying more distant celestial
bodies along with dark matter.
MACS
J0717’s lensing power will also be used by the Frontier Fields task for the
Hubble Space Telescope. It will capture the area in both visible and near
infrared wavelengths. Imaging will take place twice, first in
September-November of current year and once more in February-May of 2015. This
will let Hubble’s cameras to collect facts from the galaxy cluster beast and neighboring
parallel field, detecting the most distant areas of cosmos to date.
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