Hubble image archive
Dark Matter Map in Galaxy Cluster Abell 1689
This is the Hubble Space Telescope image of the inner region of Abell 1689, an immense cluster of galaxies located 2.2 billion light-years away. Dark matter in the cluster is mapped by plotting the plethora of arcs produced by the light from background galaxies that is warped by...
- Date
- Jan 1, 2010
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-2010-26-2756-image
This is the Hubble Space Telescope image of the inner region of Abell 1689, an immense cluster of galaxies located 2.2 billion light-years away. Dark matter in the cluster is mapped by plotting the plethora of arcs produced by the light from background galaxies that is warped by the foreground cluster's gravitational field. Dark matter cannot be photographed, but its distribution is shown in the blue overlay. The dark matter concentration and distribution is then used to better understand the nature of dark energy, a pressure that is accelerating the expansion of the universe. The imaging data used in the natural-color photo was taken in 2002 with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys.
Credits
NASA, ESA, E. Jullo (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), P. Natarajan (Yale University), and J.-P. Kneib (Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, CNRS, France);Acknowledgment: H. Ford and N. Benetiz (Johns Hopkins University), and T. Broadhurst (Tel Aviv University)
Image Details
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Abell 1689 |
| Object Description | Galaxy Cluster |
| R.A. Position | 13h 11m 29.5s |
| Dec. Position | -1° 20' 17.01" |
| Constellation | Virgo |
| Distance | The distance to the lensing cluster is 2.2 billion light-years (675 megaparsecs). The distance to the lensed galaxy is about 12.8 billion light-years. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | ACS/WFC data of Abell 1689 were observed with the HST proposal : H. Ford and N. Benitez (Johns Hopkins University), and T. Broadhurst (Tel Aviv University). The science team for this release includes: E. Jullo (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), P. Natarajan (Yale University), J.-P. Kneib (Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, CNRS, France), A. D'Aloisio (Yale University), M. Limousin (Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille and University of Copenhagen, Denmark), J. Richard (Durham University, U.K.), and C. Schimd (Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, CNRS, France). |
| Instrument | HST>ACS/WFC |
| Exposure Dates | June 12-21, 2002, Exposure Time: 10.5 hours |
| Filters | F475W (g) F775W (i) F850LP (z) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | This image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Several filters were used to sample broad wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue: Dark Matter Map + F475W (g) Green: F775W (i) Red: F850LP (z) |
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Source
Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
View on NASA.gov