Cosmic Pile-up Involves Four Clusters of Colliding Galaxies
Galaxy clusters are the largest objects bound by gravity in the Universe. While careening along a 13 million light year long stream of galaxies, gas, and dark matter - known as a filament, a collision of galaxy clusters has been identified by combining information from three different telescopes. This result gives scientists a chance to learn what happens when some of the largest objects in the Universe go at each other in a cosmic free-for-all. Using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, and the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, astronomers were able to determine the three-dimensional geometry and motion in the system MACSJ0717.5+3745 located about 5.4 billion light years from Earth.
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