NASA Telescopes Help Astronomers Spot Ultra-Luminous Galaxy Cluster With Active Heart
ByAstronomers peering out into space with NASA's Hubble and Spitzer Telescopes spotted a cluster of galaxies with a central heart brimming with new stars.
The cluster, known as SpARCS1049+56, contains 27 galaxies and lies within the Ursa Major constellation nearly 10 billion light years from Earth. While galaxy clusters are hardly a new concept for astronomers, this one is unique for its highly luminous heart, NASA noted in a news release.
The astronomers published their findings in The Astrophysical Journal.
"With Spitzer's infrared camera, we can actually see the ferocious heat from all these hot young stars," study co-author Jason Surace, from NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said in the release.
Whereas the Milky Way Galaxy, which is part of a cluster known as the local group, produces only a couple new stars per year on average, SpARCS1049+56 is churning out about 860 stars per year.
"Usually, the stars at the centers of galaxy clusters are old and dead, essentially fossils," study lead author Tracy Webb, of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, said in the release. "But we think the giant galaxy at the center of this cluster is furiously making new stars after merging with a smaller galaxy.
"Hubble found a train wreck of a merger at the center of this galaxy."