Most Distant Galaxy Cluster Revealed by Invisible Light

[Elmore Furth]

Here is a story about a galaxy cluster at 9.6 billion light years away. The story claims that this is the furthest cluster seen but a story from 2009 claims to have illustrations of a cluster 10.2 billion light years away. But what is 600 million light years among friends?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/6395761/Space-most-distant-galaxy-cluster-discovered.html

ScienceDaily (May 13, 2010) — An international team of astronomers from Germany and Japan has discovered the most distant cluster of galaxies known so far -- 9.6 billion light years away. The X-ray and infrared observations showed that the cluster hosts predominantly old, massive galaxies, demonstrating that the galaxies formed when the universe was still very young. These and similar observations therefore provide new information not only about early galaxy evolution but also about history of the universe as a whole.

Clusters of galaxies are the largest building blocks in the universe. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is part of the Virgo cluster, comprising some 1000-2000 galaxies. By observing galaxies and clusters that are very distant from Earth, astronomers can look back in time, as their light was sent out a long time ago and took millions or billions of years to reach the astronomers' telescopes.

The combination of these different observations in (to the eye) invisible wavelengths therefore led to the pioneering discovery of the galaxy cluster at a distance of 9.6 billion light years -- some 400 million light years further into the past than the previously most distant cluster known.

An analysis of the data collected about the individual galaxies shows that the cluster contains already an abundance of evolved, massive galaxies that formed some two billion years earlier. As the dynamical processes for galaxy aging are slow, presence of these galaxies requires the cluster assembly through merger of massive galaxy groups, each nourishing its dominant galaxy. The cluster is therefore an ideal laboratory for studying the evolution of galaxies, when the universe was only about a third of its present age.




Most Distant Galaxy Cluster Revealed by Invisible Light