NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has photographed the dense galaxy cluster SDSS J1531+3414 in the northern constellation Corona Borealis. Made up primarily of giant elliptical galaxies with a few spirals and irregular galaxies thrown in for good measure, the cluster's powerful gravity warps the image of background galaxies into blue streaks and arcs.
At the center of the bull's-eye of blue, gravitationally lensed filaments lies a pair of elliptical galaxies that are also exhibiting some interesting features. A 100,000-light-year-long structure that looks like a string of pearls twisted into a corkscrew shape winds around the cores of the two massive galaxies. The "pearls" are superclusters of blazing, blue-white, newly born stars. These super star clusters are evenly spaced along the chain at separations of 3,000 light-years from one another.
Astronomers first hypothesized that the string of pearls was actually a lensed image of one of the background galaxies. Upon closer inspection, it was revealed that the two elliptical galaxies are in the process of interacting and are beginning to share material between themselves.
The underlying physics behind the "beads on a string" structure is related to describing the behavior of self-gravitating clumps of gas. It's analogous to the process where rain falls in drops rather than in continuous filaments from clouds. It's called the Jeans instability, and it can play out on distance scales of enormous orders of magnitude. The whole assembly must result from the gravitational tidal forces present in the galaxy collision.
The cluster was first cataloged in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, hence the name, SDSS J1531+3414. The sharp view of Hubble was used to image the cluster in May of 2013. The Wide Field Camera 3 instrument imaged the cluster in visible and infrared filters.
Credits
NASA, ESA, G. Tremblay (ESO), M. Gladders and M. Florian (University of Chicago), S. Baum, C. O'Dea, K. Cooke (RIT), M. Bayliss (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), H. Dahle (University of Oslo), T. Davis (ESO), J. Rigby (NASA/GSFC), K. Sharon (University of Michigan), E. Soto (Catholic University of America), and E. Wuyts (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics);Acknowledgment: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | SDSS J1531+3414 |
| Object Description | Galaxy Cluster |
| R.A. Position | 15h 31m 10.66s |
| Dec. Position | 34° 14' 25.71" |
| Constellation | Corona Borealis |
| Distance | The cluster has a redshift z = 0.335. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The image was created from Hubble data from proposal : M. Gladders (University of Chicago), J. Rigby (NASA/GSFC), E. Wuyts (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching), K. Sharon (University of Michigan), M. Bayliss (Harvard University), H. Dahle (University of Oslo), and J. Hennawi (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg). The science team comprises: M. Gladders, M. Florian (University of Chicago), S. Baum, C. O'Dea, K. Cooke (Rochester Institute of Technology), M. Bayliss (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), H. Dahle (University of Oslo, Norway), T. Davis (European Southern Observatory), J. Rigby (NASA/GSFC), K. Sharon (University of Michigan), E. Soto (Catholic University), and E. Wuyts (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching). |
| Instrument | HST>WFC3/UVIS and HST>WFC3/IR |
| Exposure Dates | May 6, 2013 |
| Filters | F390W (C), F606W (V), F814W (I), and F160W (H) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | This composite image includes exposures acquired by the WFC3 instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope. Several filters were used to sample broad wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue: F390W (C) Cyan: F606W (V) Yellow: F814W (I) Red: F160W (H) |
| Compass Image |  |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
