{"id":499690,"date":"2026-05-23T23:03:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T23:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/499690\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T23:03:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T23:03:24","slug":"apod-2026-may-21-a-collision-of-galaxy-clusters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/499690\/","title":{"rendered":"APOD: 2026 May 21 \u2013 A Collision of Galaxy Clusters"},"content":{"rendered":"

APOD: 2026 May 21 \u2013 A Collision of Galaxy Clusters<\/p>\n

Discover the cosmos!<\/a>
\nEach day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.\n<\/p>\n

2026 May 21
\n

\n\"On<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

A Collision of Galaxy Clusters<\/b>
Image Credit: <\/b>
\nX-ray: NASA<\/a>\/CXC<\/a>\/CfA<\/a>\/C. Watson et al.<\/a>; Optical: PanSTARRS<\/a>; Image Processing: NASA<\/a>\/CXC<\/a>\/SAO<\/a>\/N. Wolk<\/a> and P. Edmonds<\/a><\/p>\n

Text:
\nCecilia Chirenti<\/a>
\n(NASA<\/a>
\nGSFC<\/a>,
\nUMCP<\/a>,
\nCRESST II<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Explanation: <\/b><\/p>\n

This big beautiful spiral<\/a> shines in X-ray light<\/a>. It is about 20 times larger than our Galaxy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It belongs to Abell 2029<\/a>, a galaxy cluster<\/a> one billion light-years<\/a> away.<\/p>\n

(To see only the galaxies, hover your cursor over the image, or follow this link<\/a>.) <\/p>\n

Galaxy clusters are the largest structures<\/a> in the universe that are supported<\/a> by gravity.<\/p>\n

Abell 2029 is formed by thousands of galaxies<\/a>, surrounded by a huge cloud of hot gas and the equivalent of hundreds of trillions times the mass of the Sun in dark matter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The spiral is made of gas, mostly hydrogen and helium, heated to tens of millions of degrees.<\/p>\n

It was found in a recent study<\/a> that used data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory<\/a> to show that Abell 2029 had a collision with a smaller cluster four billion years ago.<\/p>\n

The collision<\/a> affected the gravitational field and caused the intracluster gas to slosh, like wine moving in a wine glass<\/a>, shaping the spiral.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow’s picture: <\/b>stellar winds<\/a> <\/p>\n

<<\/a>
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\n Authors & editors: <\/b>
\nRobert Nemiroff<\/a>
\n(MTU<\/a>) &
\nJerry Bonnell<\/a> (UMCP<\/a>)
NASA Official: <\/b> Amber Straughn
\nSpecific rights apply<\/a>.
NASA Web Privacy<\/a>,
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A service of:<\/b>
\nASD<\/a> at
\nNASA<\/a> \/
\nGSFC<\/a>,
\n
NASA Science Activation<\/a>
\n
&<\/b> Michigan Tech. U.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"APOD: 2026 May 21 \u2013 A Collision of Galaxy Clusters Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[270],"tags":[7043,217286,18,19,17,760,133,451,17135],"class_list":["post-499690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-comet","tag-coronograph","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-plunge","tag-science","tag-space","tag-sun"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116626392144735987","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}