History of Chandra X-Ray Observatory

A CLOSER LOOK

This image of the galaxy cluster Abell 2125, provided by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO), reveals several massive multimillion degree Celsius gas clouds that appear to be in the process of merging. Ten of the point-like sources are associated with galaxies in the cluster and the rest are probably distant background galaxies. The small bright feature in the extreme lower right-hand corner is probably a background galaxy cluster not associated with Abell 2125. The bright gas cloud on the upper left is the core of the cluster and envelopes hundreds of galaxies. It consists of several elongated clouds that are merging. Chandra, Hubble Space Telescope (HST), and Very Large Array radio telescope data show that several galaxies in the Abell 2125 core cluster are being stripped of their gas as

Explore NASA's original image record for credits and available downloads.