A Quick Look at Bending the Bridge Between Two Galaxy Clusters

Several hundred million years ago, two galaxy clusters in Abell 2384 collided and then passed through each other. Galaxy clusters are the largest objects in the universe held together by gravity, and they contain huge amounts of heated gas that glows in X-rays. The powerful collision in Abell 2384 released a flood of hot gas from each galaxy cluster that formed an unusual bridge between the two objects. This bridge is now being pummeled by particles driven away from a supermassive black hole in one of the clusters. A new composite image contains X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, ESA’s XMM-Newton, radio data from a telescope in India and optical data from the DSS. Astronomers consider objects like Abell 2384 to be important for understanding the growth of galaxy clusters.