JPL
Careers
Education
Science & Technology
JPL Logo
JPL Logo
Stars and Galaxies
.

NASA Telescopes Find Galaxy Cluster with Vibrant Heart

Sept. 10, 2015

Astronomers have discovered a rare beast of a galaxy cluster whose heart is bursting with new stars.

Astronomers have discovered a rare beast of a galaxy cluster whose heart is bursting with new stars. The unexpected find, made with the help of NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes, suggests that behemoth galaxies at the cores of these massive clusters can grow significantly by feeding off gas stolen from another galaxy.

"Usually, the stars at the centers of galaxy clusters are old and dead, essentially fossils," said Tracy Webb of McGill University, Montreal, Canada, lead author of a new paper on the findings accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. "But we think the giant galaxy at the center of this cluster is furiously making new stars after merging with a smaller galaxy."

Galaxy clusters are vast families of galaxies bound and grouped by the ties of gravity. Our own Milky Way resides in a small galaxy group, called the Local Group, which itself is on the periphery of the vast Laniakea supercluster of 100,000 galaxies. (Laniakea is Hawaiian for "immeasurable heaven.")

The cluster in the new study, referred to by astronomers as SpARCS1049+56, has at least 27 galaxy members, and a combined mass equal to nearly 400 trillion suns. It is located 9.8 billion light-years away in the Ursa Major constellation. The object was initially discovered using Spitzer and the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope, located on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, and confirmed using the W.M. Keck Observatory, also on Mauna Kea.

What makes this cluster unique is its luminous heart of new stars. At the core of most massive galaxy clusters lies one hulking galaxy that usually doesn't produce new stars very quickly. The galaxy dominating the cluster SpARCS1049+56 is rapidly spitting out an enormous number of stars -- about 860 new ones a year. For reference, our Milky Way makes only about one to two stars per year.

"With Spitzer's infrared camera, we can actually see the ferocious heat from all these hot young stars," said co-author Jason Surace from NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Spitzer detects infrared light, so it can see the warm glow of hidden, dusty regions where stars form.

Follow-up studies with Hubble in visible light helped confirm the source of the fuel, or gas, for the new stars. A smaller galaxy seems to have recently merged with the monster galaxy in the middle of the cluster, lending its gas to the larger galaxy and igniting a fury of new stars.

"Hubble found a train wreck of a merger at the center of this galaxy," said Webb.

Hubble specifically detected features in the smaller, merging galaxy called "beads on a string," which are pockets of gas that condense where new stars are forming. Beads on a string are telltale signs of collisions between gas-rich galaxies, a phenomenon known to astronomers as wet mergers, where "wet" refers to the presence of gas. In these smash-ups, the gas is quickly converted to new stars.

Dry mergers, by contrast, occur when galaxies with little gas collide and no new stars are formed. Typically, galaxies at the centers of clusters grow in mass through dry mergers at their core, or by siphoning gas into their centers.

The new discovery is one of the first known cases of a wet merger at the core of a distant galaxy cluster. Hubble previously discovered another closer galaxy cluster containing a wet merger, but it wasn't forming stars as vigorously.

The researchers are planning more studies to find out how common galaxy clusters like SpARCS1049+56 are. The cluster may be an outlier, or it may represent an early time in our universe when gobbling up gas-rich galaxies was the norm.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington.

For more information about Spitzer, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer

For more information on the Hubble Space Telescope, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

News Media Contact

Whitney Clavin

Caltech

626-395-1944

wclavin@caltech.edu

Ray Villard

410-338-4514

villard@stsci.edu

Felicia Chou

Headquarters, Washington

202-358-0257

felicia.chou@nasa.gov

2015-295

Related News

Stars and Galaxies .

Webb Captures Stellar Gymnastics in the Cartwheel Galaxy

Stars and Galaxies .

NASA Reveals Webb Telescope’s First Images of Unseen Universe

Stars and Galaxies .

President Biden Reveals First Image From NASA’s Webb Telescope

Stars and Galaxies .

NASA Shares List of Cosmic Targets for Webb Telescope’s First Images

Stars and Galaxies .

NASA Helps Decipher How Some Distant Planets Have Clouds of Sand

Stars and Galaxies .

NASA Updates Coverage for Webb Telescope’s First Images Reveal

Stars and Galaxies .

NASA’s Stratospheric Balloon Mission Gets Telescope With Giant Mirror

Stars and Galaxies .

New Images Using Data From Retired Telescopes Reveal Hidden Features

Stars and Galaxies .

NASA’s NuSTAR Mission Celebrates 10 Years Studying the X-Ray Universe

Stars and Galaxies .

NASA Supports Event Horizon Telescope in Studying Milky Way’s Black Hole

Explore More

Video .

What's Up - August 2022

Mission .

SPHEREx

Video .

What's Up - July 2022

Mission .

ASTHROS

Image .

Rains of Terror

Event May 26, 2022 .

NuStar - Studying the Universe in X-Ray

Video .

What's Up - June 2022

Mission .

NuSTAR

Image .

Flares of Fury

Image .

Dark Matter

About JPL
Who We Are
Executive Council
Directors
Careers
Internships
The JPL Story
JPL Achievements
Documentary Series
Annual Reports
Missions
Current
Past
Future
All
News
All
Earth
Solar System
Stars and Galaxies
Subscribe to JPL News
Galleries
Images
Videos
Audio
Podcasts
Apps
Visions of the Future
Slice of History
Robotics at JPL
Events
Lecture Series
Team Competitions
Speakers Bureau
Calendar
Visit
Public Tours
Virtual Tour
Topics
JPL Life
Solar System
Mars
Earth
Climate Change
Exoplanets
Stars and Galaxies
Robotics
More
Asteroid Watch
NASA's Eyes Visualizations
Universe - Internal Newsletter
Social Media
Get the Latest from JPL
Follow Us

JPL is a federally funded research and development center managed for NASA by Caltech.

More from JPL
Careers Education Science & Technology Acquisitions JPL Store
Careers
Education
Science & Technology
Acquisitions
JPL Store
Related NASA Sites
Basics of Spaceflight
Climate Kids
Earth / Global Climate Change
Exoplanet Exploration
Mars Exploration
Solar System Exploration
Space Place
NASA's Eyes Visualization Project
Voyager Interstellar Mission
NASA
Caltech
Privacy
Image Policy
FAQ
Feedback
Site Managers: Veronica McGregor, Randal Jackson
Site Editors: Tony Greicius, Naomi Hartono
CL#: 21-0018