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Space - Two massive galaxy clusters collide in cosmic construction site

Space · 0:46

The James Webb Space Telescope has imaged MACS J0553.4-3342, an actively merging galaxy cluster located in the constellation Columba, seen as it existed four point four billion years ago. The cluster consists of two massive subclusters that slammed through each other and traveled over one million light-years apart before gravity pulls them back together. Filled with extremely hot gas emitting powerful X-rays, the colossal collision acts as a gravitational lens, bending background light into arcs and magnifying galaxies that formed less than a billion years after the Big Bang.

Source: ESA/Webb

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