Image: Bullet cluster

Description: X-ray photo by Chandra X-ray Observatory of the Bullet Cluster (1E0657-56). Exposure time was 0.5 million seconds (~140 hours) and the scale is shown in megaparsecs. Redshift (z) = 0.3, meaning its light has wavelengths stretched by a factor of 1.3. Based on today's theories this shows the cluster to be about 4 billion light years away. In this photograph, a rapidly moving galaxy cluster with a shock wave trailing behind it seems to have hit another cluster at high speed. The gases collide, and gravitational fields of the stars and galalxies interact. When the galaxies collided, based on black-body temperture readings, the temperature reached 160 million degrees and X-rays were emitted in great intensity, claiming title of the hottest known galactic cluster. Studies of the Bullet cluster, announced in August 2006, provide the best evidence to date for the existence of dark matter. Sister picture: image:bullet_cluster_lensing.jpg
Title: Bullet cluster
Credit: http://cxc.harvard.edu/symposium_2005/proceedings/files/markevitch_maxim.pdf
Author: User:Mac_Davis
Permission: Original work of NASA - public domain
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No