Arms in the Gas of the Coma Cluster (1 of 5) (IMAGE)

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Arms in the Gas of the Coma Cluster (1 of 5)

Caption

The center of the Coma galaxy cluster is showing the optical light and excess X-ray emission (red) overlaid. Unexpectedly, the X-ray emission shows long streams of hot X-ray emitting material. The bottom left two streams are gas that's been stripped from a group of galaxies that is merging with the main cluster. The optical light is dominated by a star to the top left and the brightest two galaxies in Coma, NGC 4889 (left) and NGC 4874 (right). This image measures 2.7 million light years across. This image relates to a paper that appeared in the 20 Sept., 2013, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by Jeremy Sanders at Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik in Garching, Germany, and colleagues was titled, "Linear Structures in the Core of the Coma Cluster of Galaxies."

Credit

[Image courtesy of J.S. Sanders <i>et al.</i> / Sloan Digital Sky Survey]

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