William Atkins
Tuesday, 26 August 2008 08:49
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 2
European astronomers state that 2XMM J083026+524133 has been located about 7.7 billion light-years from our solar system. They contend that its existence can only be explained through dark energy.
The European Space Agency (ESA) announced on Monday, August 25, 2008, that its European Photon Imaging Camera (EPIC) onboard its orbiting space telescope
XMM-Newton, an x-ray telescope, has discovered the largest known cluster of galaxies (commonly called a galactic cluster) deep within the universe.
The images taken by the German team reveal that the galactic cluster is reddish in color and elliptical in shape., The galactic cluster appears to be in an advanced state of
development, and could have formed when the universe was less than 4.5 billion years old.
Specifically, the observation of a “x-ray luminous cluster” was made by a team led by Georg Lamer of the Potsdam Astrophysics Institute, Germany, using the EPIC, a photon imaging camera,
After finding the galactic cluster with the XMM-Newton, the team tried to verify its existence with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Unable to find any nearby galaxies in that location, they decided to take an image of the location with the Large Binocular Telescope, in Arizona (U.S.A.). At that time, they verified the existence of the galactic cluster cataloged as 2XMM J083026+524133.
Dr. Lamer states,
"Such massive galaxy clusters are thought to be rare objects in the distant universe. They can be used to test cosmological theories. The existence of the cluster can only be explained with dark energy.” [UPI: “
Giant cluster of galaxies is discovered”]
The astronomers state that the mass of this galactic cluster (a group of many galaxies) has a mass that is about one thousand times the mass of an average sized galaxy, like our Milky Way galaxy. Much of the mass of the galactic cluster is at a temperature of around 100-million degrees.
What is dark energy and how does it tie in with the formation of this huge cluster? Please read page two.
