Bend in Intergalactic Gas Bridge
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Text, News From The Universe. May 28, 2020
Bend in Intergalactic Gas Bridge
Several hundred million years ago, two galaxy clusters collided, each releasing hot gas that formed a bridge between them.
Image, Blue gas spans the distance between the Northern Galaxy Cluster and the Southern Galaxy Cluster.
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Using telescopes that detect different wavelengths of length, astronomers detected a change in this fas bridge.
X-ray light from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows a distinct bend in the gas bridge between the clusters.
The bridges is being pummeled by particle jets blasting away from a supermassive black hole.
Image, Arrows indicate the gas bridge, supermassive Black Hole and Collision Site in the middle of the span of gas.
Text, Radio telescopes show the area of the black hole and its jets, pink in this image.
Image, the pink areas appear in the lower right quadrant of the picture.
Text, Observation in multiple wavelengths reveals the northern jet impacting and shifting the gas bridge.
Studying the interaction of huge galaxy clusters like this provides insight into fundamentals of how the universe works and changes over time.
This news was brought to you in part by the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, MA