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Bridging Cities of Galaxies

Nov. 21, 2012
Planck has discovered a bridge of hot gas that connects galaxy clusters Abell 399 (lower center) and Abell 401 (top left). The galaxy pair is located about a billion light-years from Earth.

Planck has discovered a bridge of hot gas that connects galaxy clusters Abell 399 (lower center) and Abell 401 (top left). The galaxy pair is located about a billion light-years from Earth, and the gas bridge extends approximately 10 million light-years between them.

The image shows the two galaxy clusters as seen at optical wavelengths with ground-based telescopes and through the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (in orange) with the Planck satellite.

Planck is a European Space Agency mission, with significant participation from NASA. NASA's Planck Project Office is based at JPL. European, Canadian and U.S. Planck scientists work together to analyze the Planck data. More information is online at http://www.nasa.gov/planck and http://www.esa.int/planck.

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