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Galaxy Cluster

Galaxy Cluster Facts For Kids

A galaxy cluster is a collection of hundreds to thousands of galaxies bound together by gravity, typically weighing from 100 trillion to 1 quadrillion solar masses.

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Galaxy Cluster
Galaxy Cluster
Facts for Kids!
Image by NASA, ESA, M. Trenti (University of Cambridge, UK and University of Colorado, Boulder, USA), L. Bradley (STScI), and the BoRG team, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

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Introduction

A galaxy cluster is like a big family reunion for galaxies! 🌌A galaxy is a huge collection of stars, planets, and gas held together by gravity. In a galaxy cluster, there can be hundreds to thousands of galaxies, all hanging out together. They can be super heavy, weighing about 1,000,000,000,000,000 (that's 14 zeros!) times heavier than our Sun! ☀️ Galaxy clusters can be found all over the universe, with some being very far away in space, taking billions of years for their light to reach us.

Images of Galaxy Cluster

NASA - Hubble Space Telescope - Deep Field - 2017 - JPG version Galaxies as far as the eye can see. https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/compare-photos-nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-hubble-space-telescope-rcna37875 Compare photos from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope.html NOTEː Original Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Image ( https://archive.stsci.edu/prepds/relics/color_images/smacs0723-73.html ) may have most likely been taken in 2017 - and may be based (according to the HST archive staff in a private email on 18 July 2022 - Drbogdan ( talk ) 00:06, 19 July 2022 (UTC) ) on images taken in 2017 ( "looks like these images were obtained between March 5 2017 and July 5 2017 and then combined together into those final images" ( at → https://archive.stsci.edu/prepds/relics/color_images/smacs0723-73.html ) - actual such basic data 2017 HST images are noted (and can be accessed) at the followinɡ → Actual Basic Data 2017 HST Images NOTEː A very minor crop has been made to the bottom of the original HST image ( Screen Capture at https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/compare-photos-nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-hubble-space-telescope-rcna37875 ) in order to BETTER COMPARE this Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image with the equivalent James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) image ( https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NASA-JWST-FirstDeepField-20220712.png ) - COMPARISONS OF THESE TWO IMAGES have been added to Wikipedia articles including at the following → ̈ 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#Scientific_results - and → 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webb's_First_Deep_Field#Comparison_with_the_Hubble_Space_Telescope - and → 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_cluster#Gallery - and → 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMACS_J0723.3–7327 - and → 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deep_fields - and → 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_light_(astronomy)#Historical_examples

NASA - Hubble Space Telescope - Deep Field - 2017 - JPG version Galaxies as far as the eye can see. https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/compare-photos-nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-hubble-space-telescope-rcna37875 Compare photos from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope.html NOTEː Original Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Image ( https://archive.stsci.edu/prepds/relics/color_images/smacs0723-73.html ) may have most likely been taken in 2017 - and may be based (according to the HST archive staff in a private email on 18 July 2022 - Drbogdan ( talk ) 00:06, 19 July 2022 (UTC) ) on images taken in 2017 ( "looks like these images were obtained between March 5 2017 and July 5 2017 and then combined together into those final images" ( at → https://archive.stsci.edu/prepds/relics/color_images/smacs0723-73.html ) - actual such basic data 2017 HST images are noted (and can be accessed) at the followinɡ → Actual Basic Data 2017 HST Images NOTEː A very minor crop has been made to the bottom of the original HST image ( Screen Capture at https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/compare-photos-nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-hubble-space-telescope-rcna37875 ) in order to BETTER COMPARE this Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image with the equivalent James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) image ( https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NASA-JWST-FirstDeepField-20220712.png ) - COMPARISONS OF THESE TWO IMAGES have been added to Wikipedia articles including at the following → ̈ 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#Scientific_results - and → 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webb's_First_Deep_Field#Comparison_with_the_Hubble_Space_Telescope - and → 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_cluster#Gallery - and → 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMACS_J0723.3–7327 - and → 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deep_fields - and → 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_light_(astronomy)#Historical_examples

Photos of Galaxy Cluster
October 16, 2014 RELEASE 14-283 NASA’s Hubble Finds Extremely Distant Galaxy through Cosmic Magnifying Glass http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/october/nasa-s-hubble-finds-extremely-distant-galaxy-through-cosmic-magnifying-glass IMAGE: The mammoth galaxy cluster Abell 2744 is so massive that its powerful gravity bends the light from galaxies far behind it, making these otherwise unseen background objects appear larger and brighter than they would normally. Image Credit: NASA, J. Lotz, (STScI) DESCRIPTION: Peering through a giant cosmic magnifying glass, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a tiny, faint galaxy -- one of the farthest galaxies ever seen. The diminutive object is estimated to be more than 13 billion light-years away. This galaxy offers a peek back to the very early formative years of the universe and may just be the tip of the iceberg. “This galaxy is an example of what is suspected to be an abundant, underlying population of extremely small, faint objects that existed about 500 million years after the big bang, the beginning of the universe,” explained study leader Adi Zitrin of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. “The discovery is telling us galaxies as faint as this one exist, and we should continue looking for them and even fainter objects, so that we can understand how galaxies and the universe have evolved over time.” The galaxy was detected by the Frontier Fields program, an ambitious three-year effort that teams Hubble with NASA’s other great observatories -- the Spitzer Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory -- to probe the early universe by studying large galaxy clusters. These clusters are so massive their gravity deflects light passing through them, magnifying, brightening, and distorting background objects in a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. These powerful lenses allow astronomers to find many dim, distant structures that otherwise might be too faint to see. The discovery was made using the lensing power of the mammoth galaxy cluster Abell 2744, nicknamed Pandora’s Cluster, which produced three magnified images of the same, faint galaxy. Each magnified image makes the galaxy appear 10 times larger and brighter than it would look without the zooming qualities of the cluster. The galaxy measures merely 850 light-years across -- 500 times smaller than our Milky Way galaxy-- and is estimated to have a mass of only 40 million suns. The Milky Way, in comparison, has a stellar mass of a few hundred billion suns. And the galaxy forms about one star every three years, whereas the Milky Way galaxy forms roughly one star per year. However, given its small size and low mass, Zitrin said the tiny galaxy actually is rapidly evolving and efficiently forming stars. The astronomers believe galaxies such as this one are probably small clumps of matter that started to form stars and shine, but do not yet have a defined structure. It is possible Hubble is only detecting one bright clump magnified due to the lensing. This would explain why the object is smaller than typical field galaxies of that time. Zitrin’s team spotted the galaxy’s gravitationally multiplied images using near-infrared and visible-light photos of the galaxy cluster taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys. But they needed to measure how far away it was from Earth. Usually, astronomers can determine an object’s distance based on how far its light has been stretched as the universe slowly expands. Astronomers can precisely measure this effect through spectroscopy, which characterizes an object’s light. But the gravitationally-lensed galaxy and other objects found at this early time period are too far away and too dim for spectroscopy, so astronomers use an object’s color to estimate its distance. The universe’s expansion reddens an object’s color in predictable ways, which scientists can measure. Zitrin’s team performed the color-analysis technique and took advantage of the multiple images produced by the gravitational lens to independently confirm the group’s distance estimate. The astronomers measured the angular separation between the three magnified images of the galaxy in the Hubble photos. The greater the angular separation due to lensing, the farther away the object is from Earth. To test this concept, the astronomers compared the three magnified images with the locations of several other closer, multiply-imaged background objects captured in Hubble images of Pandora’s cluster. The angular distance between the magnified images of the closer galaxies was smaller. “These measurements imply that, given the large angular separation between the three images of our background galaxy, the object must lie very far away,” Zitrin explained. “It also matches the distance estimate we calculated, based on the color-analysis technique. So we are about 95 percent confident this object is at a remote distance, at redshift 10, a measure of the stretching of space since the big bang. The lensing takes away any doubt that this might be a heavily reddened, nearby object masquerading as a far more distant object.” Astronomers have long debated whether such early galaxies could have provided enough radiation to warm the hydrogen that cooled soon after the big bang. This process, called reionization, is thought to have occurred 200 million to 1 billion years after the birth of the universe. Reionization made the universe transparent to light, allowing astronomers to look far back into time without running into a “fog” of cold hydrogen. The team’s results appeared in the September online edition of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington. For images and more information about Hubble, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

October 16, 2014 RELEASE 14-283 NASA’s Hubble Finds Extremely Distant Galaxy through Cosmic Magnifying Glass http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/october/nasa-s-hubble-finds-extremely-distant-galaxy-through-cosmic-magnifying-glass IMAGE: The mammoth galaxy cluster Abell 2744 is so massive that its powerful gravity bends the light from galaxies far behind it, making these otherwise unseen background objects appear larger and brighter than they would normally. Image Credit: NASA, J. Lotz, (STScI) DESCRIPTION: Peering through a giant cosmic magnifying glass, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a tiny, faint galaxy -- one of the farthest galaxies ever seen. The diminutive object is estimated to be more than 13 billion light-years away. This galaxy offers a peek back to the very early formative years of the universe and may just be the tip of the iceberg. “This galaxy is an example of what is suspected to be an abundant, underlying population of extremely small, faint objects that existed about 500 million years after the big bang, the beginning of the universe,” explained study leader Adi Zitrin of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. “The discovery is telling us galaxies as faint as this one exist, and we should continue looking for them and even fainter objects, so that we can understand how galaxies and the universe have evolved over time.” The galaxy was detected by the Frontier Fields program, an ambitious three-year effort that teams Hubble with NASA’s other great observatories -- the Spitzer Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory -- to probe the early universe by studying large galaxy clusters. These clusters are so massive their gravity deflects light passing through them, magnifying, brightening, and distorting background objects in a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. These powerful lenses allow astronomers to find many dim, distant structures that otherwise might be too faint to see. The discovery was made using the lensing power of the mammoth galaxy cluster Abell 2744, nicknamed Pandora’s Cluster, which produced three magnified images of the same, faint galaxy. Each magnified image makes the galaxy appear 10 times larger and brighter than it would look without the zooming qualities of the cluster. The galaxy measures merely 850 light-years across -- 500 times smaller than our Milky Way galaxy-- and is estimated to have a mass of only 40 million suns. The Milky Way, in comparison, has a stellar mass of a few hundred billion suns. And the galaxy forms about one star every three years, whereas the Milky Way galaxy forms roughly one star per year. However, given its small size and low mass, Zitrin said the tiny galaxy actually is rapidly evolving and efficiently forming stars. The astronomers believe galaxies such as this one are probably small clumps of matter that started to form stars and shine, but do not yet have a defined structure. It is possible Hubble is only detecting one bright clump magnified due to the lensing. This would explain why the object is smaller than typical field galaxies of that time. Zitrin’s team spotted the galaxy’s gravitationally multiplied images using near-infrared and visible-light photos of the galaxy cluster taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys. But they needed to measure how far away it was from Earth. Usually, astronomers can determine an object’s distance based on how far its light has been stretched as the universe slowly expands. Astronomers can precisely measure this effect through spectroscopy, which characterizes an object’s light. But the gravitationally-lensed galaxy and other objects found at this early time period are too far away and too dim for spectroscopy, so astronomers use an object’s color to estimate its distance. The universe’s expansion reddens an object’s color in predictable ways, which scientists can measure. Zitrin’s team performed the color-analysis technique and took advantage of the multiple images produced by the gravitational lens to independently confirm the group’s distance estimate. The astronomers measured the angular separation between the three magnified images of the galaxy in the Hubble photos. The greater the angular separation due to lensing, the farther away the object is from Earth. To test this concept, the astronomers compared the three magnified images with the locations of several other closer, multiply-imaged background objects captured in Hubble images of Pandora’s cluster. The angular distance between the magnified images of the closer galaxies was smaller. “These measurements imply that, given the large angular separation between the three images of our background galaxy, the object must lie very far away,” Zitrin explained. “It also matches the distance estimate we calculated, based on the color-analysis technique. So we are about 95 percent confident this object is at a remote distance, at redshift 10, a measure of the stretching of space since the big bang. The lensing takes away any doubt that this might be a heavily reddened, nearby object masquerading as a far more distant object.” Astronomers have long debated whether such early galaxies could have provided enough radiation to warm the hydrogen that cooled soon after the big bang. This process, called reionization, is thought to have occurred 200 million to 1 billion years after the birth of the universe. Reionization made the universe transparent to light, allowing astronomers to look far back into time without running into a “fog” of cold hydrogen. The team’s results appeared in the September online edition of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington. For images and more information about Hubble, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

Photos of Galaxy Cluster
Photos of Galaxy Cluster
Photos of Galaxy Cluster
Photos of Galaxy Cluster
Galaxy cluster IDCS J1426 is located 10 billion light-years from Earth and has the mass of almost 500 trillion suns (multi-wavelength image: X-rays in blue, visible light in green, and infrared light in red).[4]Image by NASA, ESA, and M. Brodwin (University of Missouri), licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

Galaxy cluster IDCS J1426 is located 10 billion light-years from Earth and has the mass of almost 500 trillion suns (multi-wavelength image: X-rays in blue, visible light in green, and infrared light in red).[4]

The Laniakea Supercluster with many galaxy clustersImage by Andrew Z. Colvin, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0

The Laniakea Supercluster with many galaxy clusters

Famous Galaxy Clusters

There are many famous galaxy clusters that help scientists explore the universe! 🌌One of the most well-known is the Virgo Cluster, located about 54 million light-years away. It has over 2,000 galaxies! 🌃Another famous one is the Coma Cluster, which is home to hundreds of galaxies and located about 320 million light-years from Earth. The Perseus Cluster is notable for being one of the brightest and most massive clusters observed! 🌠These clusters not only look amazing but also help astronomers learn about the structure and evolution of our universe!

Observing Galaxy Clusters

Astronomers use special telescopes to observe galaxy clusters! 🔭Some telescopes can see just the light that our eyes can see, while others can detect X-rays and radio waves. 🌈Radio telescopes, for example, pick up invisible signals that fill the universe. These beautiful collections of galaxies are far away, so scientists have to use powerful equipment to study them. Some famous observatories include the Hubble Space Telescope, which takes stunning pictures of galaxy clusters. 🌌Astronomers can find out how big they are, what they’re made of, and how they change over time!

What Is A Galaxy Cluster?

Imagine a village full of stars—each star is part of a galaxy! 🌠A galaxy cluster is a giant neighborhood that contains many galaxies, kind of like a cosmic city! Some famous examples include the Virgo Cluster and the Coma Cluster. 🌟These clusters are mostly found in space, and they are held together tightly by gravity, which wants to pull everything together. Galaxy clusters can grow over time by attracting more galaxies and merging with other clusters. Think of it as galaxies making new friends! 🤝

Galaxy Cluster Classification

Scientists group galaxy clusters into different types based on how they look and behave! 🌌There are two main categories: regular and irregular clusters. Regular clusters, like the Virgo Cluster, have galaxies organized in a symmetrical shape. 🤔Irregular clusters are messier, with galaxies that don’t line up neatly. 🌪️ Another way to classify them is by their brightness, using a special ranking called the richness class. By studying these different types, scientists can learn more about how galaxy clusters form and develop over time. 📊

Galaxy Clusters And Cosmology

Galaxy clusters are very important for understanding cosmology, which is the study of the universe! 🌌They can show us how galaxies form, evolve, and move in space. Scientists look at galaxy clusters to learn about the universe's history and how it is expanding over time. 📈By observing how clusters are arranged in space, researchers can detect dark matter and even the mysterious dark energy that pushes the universe to grow! 🌌Galaxy clusters are like giant cosmic labs where scientists can explore the secrets of our universe. 🔍

Components Of A Galaxy Cluster

A galaxy cluster is made up of three main parts: galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter! 🌌The galaxies can be spiral, like our Milky Way, or elliptical, which look more like giant eggs. In between these galaxies, there is super-hot gas that glows brightly, emitting X-rays. 🌡️ This hot gas is like the atmosphere of the cluster. There’s also dark matter, which is invisible and makes up most of the cluster's mass. 🌑We can’t see dark matter, but we know it’s there because it helps keep the galaxies together!

Future Research On Galaxy Clusters

In the future, scientists have exciting plans to learn even more about galaxy clusters! 🌌New telescopes are being built, like the James Webb Space Telescope, which will help us see clusters further away than ever before! 🛰️ Researchers will continue studying the effects of dark matter and dark energy on galaxy clusters and how they change over time. They hope to learn how galaxies interact with each other, which can give us clues about how our own Milky Way may evolve. The discoveries about galaxy clusters are just beginning! 🌟

Formation And Evolution Of Galaxy Clusters

Galaxy clusters form when smaller groups of galaxies come together due to gravity. 🌌Imagine a magnet pulling metal pieces together—that's gravity at work! 💫Over billions of years, these small groups become larger clusters. They can also change by merging with other clusters. This is like two giant clouds coming together to form one big cloud! ☁️ As they grow, different galaxies collide, share their stars, and change in shape. This process of formation and evolution is ongoing, creating even bigger clusters in the vast universe! 🌠

The Role Of Dark Matter In Galaxy Clusters

Dark matter is a mysterious part of the universe that we can't see! 🌑In galaxy clusters, dark matter helps hold everything together with its gravity. Imagine trying to hold onto a bunch of balloons—they need something to keep them from floating away! 🎈Without dark matter, galaxies in a cluster could drift apart. Scientists believe that dark matter makes up about 80% of the mass in galaxy clusters! 🌀Since we can't see it, researchers study its effects on galaxies and movements, helping us understand the hidden, invisible universe!

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