Pandora’s Cluster: Abell 2744 in Sculptor | Hubble Space Telescope

Pandora’s Cluster: Abell 2744 in Sculptor | Hubble Space Telescope

Abell 2744, nicknamed Pandora’s Cluster, was the first of six targets within the Frontier Fields program that together have produced deep images of gravitational lensing. The cluster is thought to have a very violent history, having formed from a cosmic pile-up of multiple galaxy clusters. 

Abell 2744 is a giant galaxy cluster resulting from the simultaneous pile-up of at least four separate, smaller galaxy clusters that took place over a span of 350 million years, and is located approximately 4 billion light years from Earth. The galaxies in the cluster make up less than five percent of its mass. The gas (around 20 percent) is so hot that it shines only in X-rays. Dark matter makes up around 75 percent of the cluster's mass. This cluster also shows a radio halo along with several other Abell clusters. It has a strong central halo, along with an extended tail, which could either be relic radiation, or an extension of the central halo.

Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA) and the HST Frontier Fields Team/Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)

Release Date: Oct. 22, 2015

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