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Bullet Cluster
The Bullet Cluster (1E 0657-56) consists of two colliding clusters of galaxies. Strictly speaking, the name Bullet Cluster refers to the smaller subcluster, moving away from the larger one. It is at a comoving radial distance of 1.141 Gpc (3.72 billion light-years).
The object is of a particular note for astrophysicists, because gravitational lensing studies of the Bullet Cluster are claimed to provide strong evidence for the existence of dark matter. Observations of other galaxy cluster collisions, such as MACS J0025.4-1222, similarly support the existence of dark matter.
The major components of the cluster pair—stars, gas and the putative dark matter—behave differently during collision, allowing them to be studied separately. The stars of the galaxies, observable in visible light, were not greatly affected by the collision, and most passed right through, gravitationally slowed but not otherwise altered. The hot gas of the two colliding components, seen in X-rays, represents most of the baryonic, or "ordinary", matter in the cluster pair. The gases of the intracluster medium interact electromagnetically, causing the gases of both clusters to slow much more than the stars. The third component, the dark matter, was detected indirectly by the gravitational lensing of background objects, as calculated using the best available theory of gravity in general relativity. This provides support for the idea that most of the gravitation in the cluster pair is in the form of two regions of collisionless dark matter, which bypassed the gas regions during the collision.
The Bullet Cluster is one of the hottest-known clusters of galaxies. It provides an observable constraint for cosmological models, which may diverge at temperatures beyond their predicted critical cluster temperature. Observed from Earth, the subcluster passed through the cluster center 150 million years ago, creating a "bow-shaped shock wave located near the right side of the cluster" formed as "70 million kelvin gas in the sub-cluster plowed through 100 million kelvin gas in the main cluster at a speed of about nearly 10 million km/h (6 million miles per hour)". The bow shock radiation output is equivalent to the energy of 10 typical quasars.
According to Greg Madejski:
Particularly compelling results were inferred from the Chandra observations of the 'bullet cluster' (1E0657-56; Fig. 2) by Markevitch et al. (2004) and Clowe et al. (2004). Those authors report that the cluster is undergoing a high-velocity (around 4,500 km/s) merger, evident from the spatial distribution of the hot, X-ray-emitting gas, but this gas lags behind the subcluster galaxies. Furthermore, the dark matter clump, revealed by the weak lensing map, is coincident with the collisionless galaxies, but lies ahead of the collisional gas. This—and other similar observations—allow good limits on the cross-section of the self-interaction of dark matter.
According to Eric Hayashi:
The velocity of the bullet subcluster is not exceptionally high for a cluster substructure, and can be accommodated within the currently favoured Lambda-CDM model cosmology."
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Bullet Cluster
The Bullet Cluster (1E 0657-56) consists of two colliding clusters of galaxies. Strictly speaking, the name Bullet Cluster refers to the smaller subcluster, moving away from the larger one. It is at a comoving radial distance of 1.141 Gpc (3.72 billion light-years).
The object is of a particular note for astrophysicists, because gravitational lensing studies of the Bullet Cluster are claimed to provide strong evidence for the existence of dark matter. Observations of other galaxy cluster collisions, such as MACS J0025.4-1222, similarly support the existence of dark matter.
The major components of the cluster pair—stars, gas and the putative dark matter—behave differently during collision, allowing them to be studied separately. The stars of the galaxies, observable in visible light, were not greatly affected by the collision, and most passed right through, gravitationally slowed but not otherwise altered. The hot gas of the two colliding components, seen in X-rays, represents most of the baryonic, or "ordinary", matter in the cluster pair. The gases of the intracluster medium interact electromagnetically, causing the gases of both clusters to slow much more than the stars. The third component, the dark matter, was detected indirectly by the gravitational lensing of background objects, as calculated using the best available theory of gravity in general relativity. This provides support for the idea that most of the gravitation in the cluster pair is in the form of two regions of collisionless dark matter, which bypassed the gas regions during the collision.
The Bullet Cluster is one of the hottest-known clusters of galaxies. It provides an observable constraint for cosmological models, which may diverge at temperatures beyond their predicted critical cluster temperature. Observed from Earth, the subcluster passed through the cluster center 150 million years ago, creating a "bow-shaped shock wave located near the right side of the cluster" formed as "70 million kelvin gas in the sub-cluster plowed through 100 million kelvin gas in the main cluster at a speed of about nearly 10 million km/h (6 million miles per hour)". The bow shock radiation output is equivalent to the energy of 10 typical quasars.
According to Greg Madejski:
Particularly compelling results were inferred from the Chandra observations of the 'bullet cluster' (1E0657-56; Fig. 2) by Markevitch et al. (2004) and Clowe et al. (2004). Those authors report that the cluster is undergoing a high-velocity (around 4,500 km/s) merger, evident from the spatial distribution of the hot, X-ray-emitting gas, but this gas lags behind the subcluster galaxies. Furthermore, the dark matter clump, revealed by the weak lensing map, is coincident with the collisionless galaxies, but lies ahead of the collisional gas. This—and other similar observations—allow good limits on the cross-section of the self-interaction of dark matter.
According to Eric Hayashi:
The velocity of the bullet subcluster is not exceptionally high for a cluster substructure, and can be accommodated within the currently favoured Lambda-CDM model cosmology."