Hot X-ray glow from massive cluster of galaxies

The cluster is home to a few hundreds of galaxies, large amounts of diffuse, X-ray bright gas, and even larger amounts of dark matter, with a total mass equivalent to some 500 trillion solar masses. Because of its distance from us, we are seeing this galaxy cluster as it was when the Universe was only about nine billion years old.

The galaxies that belong to the cluster are concentrated towards the centre, with two dominant members. Since galaxy clusters normally have only one major galaxy at their core, this suggests that XLSSC006 is undergoing a merger event.

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Source

Credit: ESA/XMM-Newton (X-rays); CFHT-LS (optical); XXL Survey

Astronomers using ESA's XMM-Newton space observatory have captured the X-ray glow (shown here in purple) emitted by the hot gas that pervades the galaxy cluster XLSSC006.

Source / Image Courtesy

Combining data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory with radio observations and computer simulations, scientists have found a vast wave of hot gas in the nearby Perseus galaxy cluster.

Spanning some 200,000 light-years, the wave is about twice the size of our own Milky Way galaxy.

An X-ray tail of glowing, blue gas follows dutifully behind a galaxy charging through a massive cloud of hot intergalactic gas. A composite image from NASA shows a stunning blue streak of hot gas spilling out behind a galaxy like a ribbon in cosmic flight.

According to the space agency, "This ribbon, or X-ray tail, is likely due to gas stripped from the galaxy as it moves through a vast cloud of hot intergalactic gas. With a length of at least 250,000 light years, it is likely the largest such tail ever detected."

Astronomers have used data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to capture a dramatic image of an enormous tail of hot gas.

This tail stretches for more than a million light years behind a group of galaxies that is falling into the depths of an even-larger cluster of galaxies.

Discoveries like this help astronomers learn about the environment and conditions under which the Universe's biggest structures evolve. Galaxy clusters are the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity