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| Image Credit: http://io9.com/astronomy/ |
The El Gordo star cluster sat silently at a seven billion light year distance from it's debut at today's meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas.
Not to brag or anything but El Gordo, which means 'The Fat One' in Spanish "...is the most massive, the hottest, and gives off the most X-rays of any cluster found so far at this distance or beyond," says Rutgers astronomer Felipe Menanteau.
Not to brag or anything but El Gordo, which means 'The Fat One' in Spanish "...is the most massive, the hottest, and gives off the most X-rays of any cluster found so far at this distance or beyond," says Rutgers astronomer Felipe Menanteau.
Star clusters or star clouds are groups of stars and this one results from the collision of two smaller clusters several million years ago. El Gordo tips the the scales at two quadrillion times the mass of the sun. A large portion of its mass is in the form of dark matter, an invisible material that pervades the universe. It appears the collision of these two smaller clusters, the genesis event for El Gordo, results in a larger body with the constant pull of normal matter away from its dark counterpart.
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