Wide-field view: Distant Galaxy Cluster Abell 3827 | Victor Blanco Telescope
This image features Abell 3827, a galaxy cluster that offers a wealth of exciting possibilities for study. Looking at this cluster of hundreds of galaxies, it is amazing to recall that until less than 100 years ago, many astronomers thought that the Milky Way was the only galaxy in the Universe. The possibility of other galaxies had been debated previously, but the matter was not truly settled until Edwin Hubble confirmed that the Great Andromeda Nebula was in fact far too distant to be part of the Milky Way. The Great Andromeda Nebula became the Andromeda Galaxy, and astronomers recognized that our Universe was much, much larger than humanity had imagined. We can only imagine how Edwin Hubble—after whom the Hubble Space Telescope was named—would have felt if he had seen this spectacular image of Abell 3827.
Abell 3827 is a rich cluster of galaxies located near the center of the Great Attractor; it is about 222 million light years distant. Although it is both nearby and bright, it is difficult to observe because it is located in the Zone of Avoidance, a region near the plane of the Milky Way. Consequently, the cluster is severely obscured by interstellar dust at optical wavelengths.
This wide-field image was collected as part of the Local Volume Complete Cluster Survey (LoVoCCS), a program investigating 107 nearby galaxy clusters. It took advantage of an astrophysical phenomenon called weak gravitational lensing to measure the mass and matter distributions of these clusters.
Learn about the Víctor M. Blanco Telescope:
https://noirlab.edu/science/programs/ctio/telescopes/victor-blanco-4m-telescope
Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA
Release Date: June 4, 2020
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