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Keyword: clusterlux

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  • Astronomy Picture of the Day - A Collision of Galaxy Clusters

    05/21/2026 11:33:02 AM PDT · by MtnClimber · 13 replies
    NASA ^ | 21 May, 2026 | Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/C. Watson et al.; Optical: PanSTARRS; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/S
    Explanation: This big beautiful spiral shines in X-ray light. It is about 20 times larger than our Galaxy. It belongs to Abell 2029, a galaxy cluster one billion light-years away. (To see only the galaxies, hover your cursor over the image, or follow this link.) Galaxy clusters are the largest structures in the universe that are supported by gravity. Abell 2029 is formed by thousands of galaxies, surrounded by a huge cloud of hot gas and the equivalent of hundreds of trillions times the mass of the Sun in dark matter. The spiral is made of gas, mostly hydrogen and...