The deepest field image of Giant Galaxy Cluster is a brutal reminder of your cosmic insignificance

Regarding the observations of deep space, our cosmological insignificance seems to grow with the resolution of the cameras of our telescopes. In the last advance, astronomers have built the deepest images of Abell 3667, a group of massive galaxies located at 700 million light years of the earth – and most of the small points you see represent whole galaxies.

But the latest images of Abell 3667 also offer “whispering evidence of past galactic interactions”, which astronomers document in detail in an article published today in Astrophysical newspaper letters. The team, led by astronomers from Brown University, caught Abell 3677 at a particularly brilliant moment in space-time, during a merger of two of the most brilliant galaxies of the clusters. The Stellar Union, resembling a star bridge extending through the cluster, generated powerful gravitational gusts which pulled the occasional wandering star of other galaxies.

Together, these solitary stars emit a low glow known as the intracluster light (ICL) – and it is this phenomenon that researchers are investigating to explore the past of Abell 3677. More specifically, it seems likely that Abell 3667 was also formed from the rapid fusion of two clusters of galaxies, which the previous X and radio observations had predicted. The latter observation, however, represents the first optical evidence in support of this idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loxbtxpitr4

“This is the first time that a characteristic of this scale and this size has been found in a local galaxies cluster,” said Anthony Englert, the main author of the study, in a statement. “We knew that it was possible that a bridge like this formed between two galaxies, but it had not been documented anywhere before. It was a huge surprise that we could have imagined such a low functionality.”

The team had an unusually long observation period for this project, which has partly allowed them to build such a detailed image. In addition to the intracluster light, the researchers captured puffs of weak and defeated cosmic dust called Integrated flow nebulaeConsidered the bluish ribbons of light streaks through the image.

“It was just a good coincidence that so many people imagined Abell 3667 over the years, and we have been able to stack all these observations together,” said Englert.

Researchers have unanswered questions about Abell 3677 and, more importantly, intraclastic light. Fortunately, their timing could not have been more impeccable; with Rubin telescope Officially, astronomers are now better equipped to probe these questions more.

“Rubin will be able to imagine iCL in the same way as we do here, but that will do it for each group of local galaxies in the southern sky,” said Englert. “What we have done is just a small ribbon of what Rubin will be able to do. It will really explode the study of the wide open iCL.”

Essentially, if this new image does not make you feel small, you may want to wait for the Rubin versions which are soon in this image. In fact, if Englert is right, we will see several versions of this image, and in higher resolution too. So, for better or for worse, we, humans, will only do less than here.