Latest news with #Abell2255
Yahoo
21-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
This galaxy cluster has mysterious cosmic tendrils over 200,000 light-years long (image)
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Astronomers have obtained the deepest and highest resolution image of the galaxy cluster Abell 2255, observing the unexplained radio-emitting tendrils that trail it in unprecedented detail. Abell 2255 is a cluster containing between 300 and 500 constituent galaxies, many of which are merging. It's located around 800 million light-years from Earth and spans around 16.3 million light-years. The team behind this research was interested in the so-called "radio galaxies" of this cluster. Radio galaxies are galaxies dominated by feeding supermassive black holes that launch out powerful jets of matter at near-light speeds. This new investigation of Abell 2255 could reveal how radio galaxies evolve and how supermassive black hole-launched jets interact with gas and dust between galaxies, a space called the intergalactic medium. "These results open the way to new perspectives for the study not only of radio galaxies but also of the properties of the gas that permeates galaxy clusters,' Marco Bond, study team member and a researcher at the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), said in a statement. The team obtained their Abell 2255 data using the European Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope in its Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) mode. With 56 hours of observations at a radio frequency of 144 MHz, the researchers were able to obtain deep images of the galaxy cluster with an angular resolution of up to 0.3 arcseconds. This revealed elongated filamentary structures stretching out for between 260,000 and 360,000 light-years. That's longer than 3 times the width of the Milky Way. The thickness of these filaments, however, is less than a tenth of the width of our galaxy. The team behind this research theorizes that these filaments originate from within the radio galaxies of Abell 2255 and were dragged out by turbulent motion within the galaxy cluster. The filaments will eventually mix within the intergalactic medium of gas and dust in Abell 2255. One of the radio galaxies the team focused on in particular was the Original Tailed Radio Galaxy, which possesses a tangled tail and rich filaments, features that have never before been observed in such new LOFAR images also reveal previously unseen details of other radio galaxies within the Abell 2255, including the Goldfish, the Beaver and the Embryo galaxies — all of which are notable for their distorted shapes and vast, trailing radio tails that extend more than 200,000 light-years. "Our main goal was to use LOFAR-VLBI to detect possible filaments in the tails of the radio galaxies of Abell 2255, in order to study their morphological characteristics and understand their origin," team member and University of Bologna researcher Emanuele De Rubeis said. "Phenomena of this type are emerging more and more frequently thanks to modern interferometers, such as the precursors of the SKA project, and offer valuable opportunities to investigate the magnetic properties of the hot gas permeating the cluster and the mechanisms of particle acceleration." Related Stories: — Scientist image 3-million-light-year-long 'cosmic web' ensnaring 2 galaxies for 1st time — 'Superhighways' connecting the cosmic web could unlock secrets about dark matter — How does the Cosmic Web connect Taylor Swift and the last line of your 'celestial address?'years The team's research is part of a wider investigation made possible with recent developments in calibration techniques. of LOFAR-VLBI data. "We calibrated 56 hours of observations, divided into nightly sessions of about 8 hours each. The raw data from each night is about 4 terabytes, but after calibration, the volume increases to 18 to 20 terabytes for a total of about 140 terabytes overall," De Rubeis said. "Of course, calibrating the data and obtaining quality images took a lot of trial and error. To fully process a single night and produce images of all the sources, it took us about a month on average."The team's research was published on June 10 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Newsweek
09-06-2025
- Science
- Newsweek
Space: Record-Breaking Cosmic Discovery Challenges Long-Standing Physics
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Astronomers have smashed the record for the largest-known cloud of energetic particles discovered surrounding a galactic cluster—and the find could shake up established physics. The cluster in question, which has the catchy name of "PLCK G287.0+32.9," lies some 5 billion light-years from Earth. The cloud around it is nearly a whopping 20 million light-years across—about 20 times the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy—beating the previous record holder, seen around cluster Abell 2255, which spanned only 16.3 million light-years. PLCK G287.0+32.9 was first spotted in 2011, with studies revealing that the cluster's edges were lit up by two giant shockwaves. The study was led by astronomer Kamlesh Rajpurohit of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "We expected a bright pair of relics at the cluster's edges, which would have matched prior observations, but instead we found the whole cluster glowing in radio light," Rajpurohit said in a statement. She added: "A cloud of energetic particles this large has never been observed in this galaxy cluster or any other." In addition, when the team peered deep into the cluster's central region, they also detected a radio halo some 11.4 million light-years across—the first of this size seen at the 2.4 gigahertz frequency, at which such large halos are not normally visible. A composite, false color image of the galaxy cluster PLCK G287.0+32.9. A composite, false color image of the galaxy cluster PLCK G287.0+32.9. X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/K. Rajpurohit et al.; Optical: PanSTARRS; Radio: SARAO/MeerKAT; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk "Very extended radio hales are mostly only visible at lower frequencies because the electrons that produce them have lost energy—they're old and have cooled over time," explained Rajpurohit. "With the discovery of this enormous halo, we are now seeing radio emission extending all the way between the giant shocks and beyond, filling the entire cluster. "That suggests something is actively accelerating or reaccelerating the electrons, but none of the usual suspects apply. "We think that giant shockwaves or turbulence could be responsible, but we need more theoretical models to find a definitive answer." In the cluster's center, the team explained, this activity could be the result of the merger of two smaller galactic clusters, outbursts from a supermassive black hole, or both combined. According to the researchers, the discovery provides us with a new means to examine cosmic magnetic fields—and could help astrophysicists unpick how magnetism shapes the universe on the biggest of scales. "We're starting to see the universe in ways we never could before," said Rajpurohit. "That means rethinking how energy and matter move through its largest structures." The full findings of the study were presented on Monday at the 246th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, which is being held in Anchorage, Alaska, from 8–12 June. Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about astronomy? Let us know via science@ Reference Rajpurohit, K., Botteon, A., O'Sullivan, E., Forman, W., Balboni, M., Bruno, L., van Weeren, R. J., Hoeft, M., Brunetti, G., Jones, C., Rajpurohit, A. S., & Sikhosana, S. P. (2025). Radial Profiles of Radio Halos in Massive Galaxy Clusters: Diffuse Giants Over 2 Mpc. arXiv.
