Hubble Takes Closer Look at Abell 1758

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken the most detailed image so far of A1758N, a sub-cluster of the massive galaxy cluster Abell 1758.

This Hubble image shows A1758N, the northern part of the galaxy cluster Abell 1758. The cluster is approximately 3.2 billion light-years from Earth and is part of a larger structure containing two clusters sitting some 2.4 million light-years apart. But A1758N itself is further split into two sub-sections, known as East (A1758NE) and West (A1758NW). Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Although often overshadowed by its more famous cousins — including the Fornax Cluster and Pandora’s Cluster — Abell 1758 contains more than its fair share of intrigue.

Abell 1758 was first identified in 1958, and initially logged as a single massive object.

However, four decades later the cluster was observed again by the ROSAT satellite X-ray telescope, and astronomers spotted something peculiar: the cluster was not a single concentration of galaxies, but two.

Abell 1758 has since been observed many more times by various observatories and is now known to have both a double structure and a complex history.

It contains two massive sub-clusters — A1758N (North) and A1758S (South) — sitting some 2.4 million light-years apart.

In this Hubble image only the northern structure of the cluster, A1758N, is visible.

A1758N is further split into two sub-structures, known as East (A1758NE) and West (A1758NW).

There appear to be disturbances within both of these sub-sections — strong evidence that they are the result of smaller clusters colliding and merging.

Collisions such as the one A1758N is undergoing are the most energetic events in the Universe apart from the Big Bang itself.

Understanding how clusters merge helps astronomers to understand how structures grow and evolve in the Universe. It also helps them to study dark matter, the intracluster medium and galaxies, and to explore how these three components interact — particularly during mergers.

This image of A1758N was taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide-Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instruments as part of an extensive observing program called Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey (RELICS).

RELICS imaged 41 giant galaxy clusters over the course of 390 Hubble orbits and 100 Spitzer Space Telescope observing hours, aiming to find the brightest distant galaxies.

Studying these galaxies in more detail with both current telescopes and the future NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope will hopefully tell us more about our cosmic origins.

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