Colliding Cluster Galaxies

MrSelf · Post by **MrSelf** » Fri Sep 24, 2004 11:36 am

By Tariq Malik
Staff Writer
posted: 24 September 2004
6:30 a.m. ET
link

Astronomers have found what they are calling the perfect cosmic storm, a galaxy cluster pile-up so powerful its energy output is second only to the Big Bang.

The cluster collision is the most powerful ever recorded and a fresh glimpse of the cluster merging process, where great swarms of galaxies smash into one another to form a single galactic structure. "We are now able to see things in nature of what was previously only available in computer simulation," said astronomer Patrick Henry, of the University of Hawaii, during a Sept. 23 teleconference with reporters.

Henry led an international team of astronomers that used a space-based X-ray observatory to peer at an object known as Abell 754 - the product of the collision between two smaller galaxy clusters about 300 million years ago. Finding observable evidence of such collisions bolsters theories that the universe formed in a "bottom up" hierarchical structure where stars and galaxies collected and merged together to form larger galaxies and galaxy clusters.

Galaxy clusters are the largest structures in the universe to be bound by gravity, some containing the mass of up to 10,000 times that of our own Milky Way, researchers said. The Milky Way, is part of a galactic club dubbed the Local Group, which could slam into the Virgo Cluster in a few billion years, though the expansion of the universe may prevent it, they added.

More in the link....

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Red Squirrel · Post by **Red Squirrel** » Fri Sep 24, 2004 1:18 pm

Haha I was just going to post this, seen it on TV. The largest explosion ever recorded. Good thing it's not our galaxy.

Crazy stuff!

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MrSelf · Post by **MrSelf** » Fri Oct 08, 2004 4:15 pm

Red Squirrel wrote: Haha I was just going to post this, seen it on TV. The largest explosion ever recorded. Good thing it's not our galaxy. Crazy stuff!

Yeah, and very neat that we are observing it first hand.

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