Very Large Array - Blog Posts

Cosmic fireworks ahead! This dramatically colorful image shows MACS J0717, one of the most complex and distorted galaxy clusters known. It was formed by the collision of four smaller galaxy clusters. A visible-light image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows hundreds of galaxies, both within the cluster and throughout the background, and myriad foreground stars. A pink overlay represents radio data from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, which traces enormous shock waves and turbulence. The diffuse emission in blue, from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, highlights gas with temperatures of millions of degrees. Credit: NASA, ESA, CXC, NRAO/AUI/NSF, STScI, and R. van Weeren (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics); NASA, ESA, J. Lotz (STScI), and the Hubble Frontier Fields team. ALT TEXT: Hundreds of small galaxies of various shapes on the black background of space. They are concentrated near the center of the image. Dramatic pink ribbons form a curving L shape near the center. Below them, a linear pink feature with a blue blob in the middle extends from upper left to lower right. Diffuse blue light fills much of the field of view and is brightest just to the right of the pink ribbons.