The Perseus Cluster of Galaxies
Here is one of the
largest objects that anyone will ever see on the sky.
Each of these fuzzy blobs is a galaxy, together making up the
Perseus Cluster, one of the closest
clusters
of galaxies.
The cluster is seen through a foreground of faint stars in our own
Milky Way Galaxy.
Near the cluster center, roughly 250 million light-years
away, is the cluster's dominant galaxy NGC 1275,
seen above as a large galaxy on the image left.
A prodigious source of
x-rays and radio emission,
NGC 1275 accretes
matter as gas and galaxies fall into it.
The Perseus Cluster of Galaxies, also cataloged as Abell 426,
is part of the Pisces-Perseus supercluster
spanning over 15 degrees and containing over 1,000 galaxies.
At the distance of NGC 1275, this view covers about 15 million
light-years.
