New Discovery About Dark Matter: Pandora’s Cluster

New Discovery about Dark Matter: Pandora’s Cluster: A team of scientists has studied the unusual galaxy cluster Abell 2744, nicknamed Pandora’s Cluster. Using telescopes in space and on the ground, including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ESO’s Very Large Telescope, they have discovered that it was formed by the simultaneous pile-up of at least four separate galaxy clusters. When huge clusters of galaxies crash together, the resulting mess is a treasure trove of information. Observing these cosmic pile-ups lets astronomers reconstruct events that have happened over hundreds of millions of years. It also lets them study how different types of matter behave during these collisions. The cluster galaxies in Pandora’s Cluster are clearly visible in images from Hubble and ESO’s Very Large Telescope. However they only make up about 5% of the cluster’s mass. About 20% is hot gas, which is shown here in pink. This gas is visible thanks to its X-ray emission which can be detected with NA