Plunging into the Furnace: The Fornax Cluster | Victor Blanco Telescope

Plunging into the Furnace: The Fornax Cluster | Victor Blanco Telescope

A doomed galaxy falling into the core of the Fornax Cluster was captured by the Dark Energy Camera on the Víctor M. Blanco Telescope in Chile. The irregular galaxy NGC 1427A is plunging into the heart of the cluster at 2.2 million  kilometers (or 1.3 million miles) per hour. Over millions of years, the galaxy will be ripped apart by gravitational interactions from the two largest galaxies in the image. Many colorful galaxies of various sizes and shapes paint the background of this image, appearing alongside nearby stars inside our own Milky Way.

Members of the Fornax galaxy cluster are featured here in images from the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a Program of National Science Foundation (NSF) NOIRLab. Appearing in the constellation Fornax (the Furnace), the Fornax Cluster is a relatively nearby galaxy cluster, only about 60 million light-years from Earth.

Learn about the Víctor M. Blanco Telescope:
https://noirlab.edu/science/programs/ctio/telescopes/victor-blanco-4m-telescope

Dark Energy Camera (DECam)
https://noirlab.edu/public/programs/ctio/victor-blanco-4m-telescope/decam/

Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA

Image Processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), J. Miller (Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab), M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab) & D. de Martin (NSF NOIRLab)

Duration: 1 minute

Release Date: Sept. 23, 2021

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