When surveys turn up super cool objects, those objects often get special, prolonged attention from telescopes of all kinds. In one stunning case, the merging galaxy cluster Abell 2146 was initially cataloged in the middle of the last century using optical images and is now studied in detail by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. This system is actually two massive collections of galaxies that are colliding together and, in the process, are creating massive shockwaves as their gas, dust, and even dark matter intermixes. 

In images released with a new paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and led by Helen Russell, the core of one of these two clusters shines bright and is trailed by material. We are seeing the collision push the hot gas out behind the cluster. In software, researchers enhanced the details to reveal shock waves curving out in front and behind this core, marking how both systems have reshaped the gas as they passed through one another.

This is exactly what should happen, and the details of how it happens reveal the galaxy cluster’s densities, temperatures, and even the timescales for the interactions.

This is science made beautiful not by the picture; it is basically a purple blob. No, this is science made beautiful by our understanding.

More Information

CXO press release

“The structure of cluster merger shocks: Turbulent width and the electron heating timescale,” H R Russell et al., 2022 May 17, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society