SPT-CLJ2106-5844 is a galaxy cluster located 7.5 billion light years from Earth. It was discovered by scientists from the South Pole Telescope Collaboration, using the South Pole Telescope. With a weight of about 1.27 × 1015 solar masses, it is the most massive distant object known, as of 2011. It is about 60% heavier than previously known object detected in 2008, SPT-CL J0546-5345.[1][2]
This galaxy cluster was found in the South Pole Telescope Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SPT-SZ) survey. This survey was done using the Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope. There have been many observations completed in x-ray and infrared imaging to discover new observations about this massive cluster. Like how the central dump is resolved into two different substructures – northwestern and southeastern – which are separated by a distance of ~150 kpc. This distance is immense, considering the distance from Earth to the Galactic Center is only 7-10 kpc. To put this in perspective, the Milky Way galaxy could fit 20 times between these two substructures, the actual diameter of 'SPT-CLJ2106' is much bigger than just this gap.[3]
References
edit- ^ "Antarctica Telescope Finds Most Massive Distant Object -1000 Times Mass of Milky Way". The Daily Galaxy. 2011-04-12. Retrieved 2011-04-12.
- ^ Foley, R. J.; Andersson, K.; Bazin, G.; de Haan, T.; et al. (20 April 2011). "DISCOVERY AND COSMOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF SPT-CL J2106-5844, THE MOST MASSIVE KNOWN CLUSTER AT z>1". The Astrophysical Journal. 731 (2): 86. arXiv:1101.1286. Bibcode:2011ApJ...731...86F. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/731/2/86. S2CID 119297916.
- ^ Kim, Jinhyub; Jee, M. James; Perlmutter, Saul; Hayden, Brian; Rubin, David; Huang, Xiaosheng; Aldering, Greg; Ko, Jongwan (2019-10-10). "Precise Mass Determination of SPT-CL J2106-5844, the Most Massive Cluster at z>1". The Astrophysical Journal. 887 (1). Cornell University: 76. arXiv:1910.04775. Bibcode:2019ApJ...887...76K. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab521e. S2CID 204401763.
- ^ Reichardt, Christian (2011-01-11). "SPT SZ Observations" (PDF). Planck conference. Retrieved 2011-04-16.