NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection

Galaxy Cluster in the Early Universe

Long before medieval alchemists dreamed of transmuting base metals to gold [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], stellar furnaces in this massive cluster of galaxies - cataloged as RDCS 1252.9-2927 - had transformed light elements into heavy ones [ http://helios.gsfc.…]. In the false-color composite image [ http://chandra.harv…] individual cluster galaxies can be seen at optical and near-infrared wavelengths, shown in red, yellow, and green colors. X-ray [ http://chandra.harv…] data (in purple) reveal the hot intracluster gas [ http://chandra.harv…galaxy_clusters.html ], enriched in heavy elements. Attracting the attention of astronomers using the orbiting Chandra [ http://chandra.harv…] and XMM-Newton [ http://sci.esa.int/…index.cfm?fareaid=23 ] x-ray telescopes, as well as the Hubble Space Telescope [ http://hubblesite.o…releases/2004/01/ ] and ground based VLT [ http://www.eso.org/…], the galaxy cluster lies nearly 9 billion light-years away [ http://www.faqs.org…part8/section-14.htm l ] ... and so existed at a time when the Universe was less than 5 billion years old. A measured mass of more than 200 trillion [ http://www.unc.edu/…large.html ] Suns makes this galaxy cluster the most massive object ever found when the Universe was so young. The cluster elemental abundances [ http://arxiv.org/ab…] are consistent with the idea that most heavy elements were synthesized early on by massive stars, but current theories suggest that such a massive cluster should be rare in the early Universe [ http://www.us-gemin…announcements/press/ 2004-1.html ].

P.Rosati (ESO) et al. [ http://arxiv.org/ab…]; X-Ray: CXC [ http://chandra.harv…], NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov…] / Optical: ESO [ http://www.eso.org/], VLT [ http://www.eso.org/…]

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

ESO

Gemini

VLT

XMM-Newton

Hubble Space Telescope (HST)

http://antwrp.gsfc.…

SPD-APOD-ap040226