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| Microwave (orange), optical (red, green, blue) and ultraviolet (blue) image of Phoenix Cluster. Image released August 15, 2012. CREDIT: UV: NASA/JPL-Caltech/M.McDonald; Optical: AURA/NOAO/CTIO/MIT/M.McDonald; Microwave: NSF/SPT |
Aug 18, 2012 | Mike Wall
The faraway Phoenix galaxy cluster may be the biggest and brightest such structure ever discovered, and it's forming stars at an unprecedented rate, scientists announced today (Aug. 15).
Here's a by-the-numbers look at the Phoenix cluster — formally known as SPT-CLJ2344-4243 — which researchers say could yield key insights into how galaxies and colossal clusters evolve:
2.5 quadrillion: How many times more massive the Phoenix cluster is than our own sun. This may be an all-time record for galaxy clusters — the most massive structures in the universe, composed of hundreds or thousands of individual galaxies bound together by gravity — researchers said.
"I would say it's in a dead heat for the most massive galaxy cluster," Michael McDonald of MIT, lead author of the study describing Phoenix's remarkable properties, told SPACE.com contributor Charles Choi. "The record-holder, 'El Gordo,' is slightly more massive, but the uncertainty in this estimate is high — it could turn out that with more careful measurements, Phoenix is more massive."
3 trillion: The number of stars that reside in the Phoenix cluster's central galaxy, compared to 200 billion or so in our own Milky Way. [Gallery: Chandra Spies Fastest-Growing Galaxy Cluster]
10 billion: The low-end estimate of the mass of the huge black hole at the heart of Phoenix's central galaxy, in solar masses. That's about as massive as the biggest black hole ever discovered.
For comparison, the Milky Way's central black hole weighs in at about 4 million solar masses.
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