Galaxy Clusters Abell 222 and Abell 223

Credit: Springel et al., Virgo Consortium, Posted on: Wednesday, 7 May 2008, 07:02 CDT Download full size image

ESA’s orbiting X-ray observatory XMM-Newton has been used by a team of international astronomers to uncover part of the missing matter in the universe.

10 years ago, scientists predicted that about half of the missing ‘ordinary’ or normal matter made of atoms exists in the form of low-density gas, filling vast spaces between galaxies.

This image shows composite optical and X-ray image of galaxy clusters Abell 222 and Abell 223. The cluster pair is connected by a filament permeated by hot X-ray emitting gas.

The optical image was obtained by SuprimeCam at the Subaru telescope, the X-ray image showing the distribution of the diffuse hot gas (yellow to red) was obtained by XMM-Newton.

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