Astronomers take a unique picture of a cluster of galaxies using data from two telescopes

Miscellaneous / by admin / April 03, 2023

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This method will soon provide many new images of distant objects from the depths of space.

A team of researchers led by PhD student Roland Timmerman from the University of Leiden (Netherlands) received beautiful image of the cluster of galaxies in the constellation Perseus. It was created using data from the LOFAR radio telescope and the Chandra space observatory, which explores space in the X-ray range.

Red - LOFAR radio emission. Blue - X-ray image of the Chandra Observatory. White is hydrogen on the WIYN H-alpha map. And in the background, the starry sky is visible in the optical light of the Hubble telescope / LOFAR / Chandra / WIYN / Hubble / Frits Sweijen

This image also provides more information about the vast amount of energy being released around supermassive black holes in such clusters. It was extremely difficult to study these processes, but a new method of combining measurements from a radio telescope with data from an X-ray observatory allows us to look at them in a new way.

This combination gives a much better idea of what's going on. It's a cliché, but the sum here is indeed greater than all of its parts. Chandra and LOFAR alone can make a pretty reasonable guess about the amount of energy a black hole is putting into a cluster environment, but together they are much stronger.

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Roland Timmerman

The scientist notes that previously such a combination of measurements was not possible, since there were no radio images available with sufficient quality to match the X-ray images. But now there are LOFAR antenna stations all over Europe, and this allows you to increase the detail of the original data.

Now astronomers are busy creating composite images of other clusters of galaxies. Using the underlying data, they hope to better understand how galaxies interact with their environment in the early universe.