marcus
Jun18-06, 09:58 AM
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0505036
http://www.universetoday.com/2006/06/12/gigantic-ball-of-fire-discovered/
the popular news item says "gigantic-ball-of-fire-discovered" heh heh
it is a gas cloud in the cluster Abell 3266 which is hot enough to be observed in Xray wavelengths----ie on order of million kelvin
and has been estimated (in that and in the technical article linked to) as about 3 million lightyears diameter with mass of 2 x 1013 solar masses. that is 20 trillion, compare this to the Andromeda galaxy whose mass is about 1 trillion.
the apparent diameter of the Abell 3266 cloud in the sky is about half the diameter of the full moon.
would be a nice sight for us to see if we had Xray eyes
==========
the observers are happy because, as they say, it lets them glimpse STRUCTURE FORMATION IN PROGRESS
they get to see the processes by which clusters of galaxies form
they estimate the thing is traveling 750 kilometers per second---quite fast.
http://www.universetoday.com/2006/06/12/gigantic-ball-of-fire-discovered/
the popular news item says "gigantic-ball-of-fire-discovered" heh heh
it is a gas cloud in the cluster Abell 3266 which is hot enough to be observed in Xray wavelengths----ie on order of million kelvin
and has been estimated (in that and in the technical article linked to) as about 3 million lightyears diameter with mass of 2 x 1013 solar masses. that is 20 trillion, compare this to the Andromeda galaxy whose mass is about 1 trillion.
the apparent diameter of the Abell 3266 cloud in the sky is about half the diameter of the full moon.
would be a nice sight for us to see if we had Xray eyes
==========
the observers are happy because, as they say, it lets them glimpse STRUCTURE FORMATION IN PROGRESS
they get to see the processes by which clusters of galaxies form
they estimate the thing is traveling 750 kilometers per second---quite fast.