NASA's Hubble Telescope Captures Merging Galaxy Clusters In Space

A new image captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is helping scientists learn more about a massive galaxy cluster and the invisible matter that shapes the universe, reported NASA.

The image features a galaxy cluster called CL0016+1609, also known as MACS J0018.5+1626. It is very bright at X-ray wavelengths and is one of the most extensively studied galaxy clusters at X-ray and radio wavelengths.

X-ray observations of the cluster revealed that it is made up of two galaxy clusters merging along our line of sight.

Researchers requested observation time with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys because the data would help them accurately measure the cluster's dark matter distribution. This information helps scientists study the merger and understand the role of CL0016+1609 in the large-scale structure of the universe.

Although Hubble cannot directly see dark matter, its infrared and visible light observations can detect the gravitational lensing effects of dark matter on the normal matter that the telescope observes.

The image also includes data collected by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 as part of the RELICS (Reionisation Lensing Cluster Survey) observing programme. The survey captured the first Hubble infrared images of 46 massive galaxy clusters and searched for distant galaxies that were gravitationally lensed by these clusters.

The RELICS survey identified around 300 high-redshift candidate galaxies that were lensed by the galaxy clusters.

One of these distant galaxies appears as a faint vertical arc just to the left of the large elliptical galaxies in the centre of the image. Another brighter but shorter arc can be seen just above and to the right of the large elliptical galaxies in the centre.