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3c294.jpg

This Chandra image shows hot gas enveloping the extremely distant galaxy known as 3C294. Astronomers believe this is the most distant cluster of galaxies ever detected in X-rays, capturing it when the universe was only 20 percent of its current age. The existence of such a faraway cluster may have important implications for how the universe evolved.

Chandra's image reveals an hourglass-shaped region of X-ray emission centered on the previously known central radio source (seen in the Chandra image as the blue central object) that extends outward for 60,000 light-years. The vast clouds of this hot gas that surround such galaxies in clusters are thought to be heated by collapse toward the center of the cluster. Until Chandra, X-ray telescopes have not had the needed sensitivity to identify such distant clusters of galaxies.

The intensity of the X-rays in this Chandra image of 3C294 is shown as red for low energy X-rays, green for intermediate, and blue for the most energetic X-rays. Chandra observed 3C294 for 5.4 hours on October 29, 2000, with the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer.

PHOTO: NASA/IoA/A. Fabian et al.

Scale: 1.2 arcmin per side

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