Here is one of the largest objects [ http://www.actden.c…] that anyone will ever see on the sky. Each of the fuzzy blobs in the above picture is a galaxy, together making up the Perseus Cluster, one of the closest clusters of galaxies [ http://crux.astr.ua…]. We view the cluster through the foreground of faint stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. It takes light roughly 300 million years to get here from this region of the Universe [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], so we see this cluster as it existed before the age of the dinosaurs [ http://www.wf.carle…]. Also known as Abell 426 [ http://users.ox.ac.…], the center of the Perseus Cluster is a prodigious source of X-ray radiation [ http://imagine.gsfc…], and so helps astronomers explore [ http://lheawww.gsfc…asca_perseus/apjlett .html ] how clusters formed and how gas [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] and dark matter interact [ http://physics.hall…]. The Perseus Cluster of Galaxies is part of the Pisces-Perseus [ http://aps.umn.edu/…] supercluster of galaxies [ http://astrowww.phy…], which spans over 15 degrees and contains over 1000 galaxies.
Explanation
Here is one of the largest objects [ http://www.actden.c…] that anyone will ever see on the sky. Each of the fuzzy blobs in the above picture is a galaxy, together making up the Perseus Cluster, one of the closest clusters of galaxies [ http://crux.astr.ua…]. We view the cluster through the foreground of faint stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. It takes light roughly 300 million years to get here from this region of the Universe [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], so we see this cluster as it existed before the age of the dinosaurs [ http://www.wf.carle…]. Also known as Abell 426 [ http://users.ox.ac.…], the center of the Perseus Cluster is a prodigious source of X-ray radiation [ http://imagine.gsfc…], and so helps astronomers explore [ http://lheawww.gsfc…asca_perseus/apjlett .html ] how clusters formed and how gas [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] and dark matter interact [ http://physics.hall…]. The Perseus Cluster of Galaxies is part of the Pisces-Perseus [ http://aps.umn.edu/…] supercluster of galaxies [ http://astrowww.phy…], which spans over 15 degrees and contains over 1000 galaxies.
