Several hundred million years ago, two galaxy clusters collided and then passed through each other. This mighty event released a flood of hot gas from each galaxy cluster that formed an unusual bridge between the two objects. This bridge is now being pummeled by particles driven away from a supermassive black hole.
Galaxy clusters are the largest objects in the universe held together by gravity. They contain hundreds or thousands of galaxies, vast amounts of multi-million-degree gas that glow in X-rays, and enormous reservoirs of unseen dark matter.
The system known as Abell 2384 shows the giant structures that can result when two galaxy clusters collide. A superheated gas bridge in Abell 2384 is shown in this composite image of X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton (blue), as well as the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope in India (red). This new multi-wavelength view reveals the effects of a jet shooting away from a supermassive black hole in the center of a galaxy in one of the clusters. The jet is so powerful that it is bending the shape of the gas bridge, which extends for over 3 million light years and has the mass of about 6 trillion Suns.
几亿年前，两个星系团相撞，然后互相穿过。这个强大的事件从每个星系团释放出大量热气体，在两个物体之间形成了一个不寻常的桥梁。这座桥现在正受到来自超大质量黑洞的粒子的撞击。
星系团是宇宙中由引力结合在一起的最大物体。它们包含成百上千个星系，数百万度的X射线气体，以及大量不可见的暗物质。
称为Abell 2384的系统显示了两个星系团碰撞时可能产生的巨大结构。美国国家航空航天局钱德拉X射线天文台和欧空局XMM牛顿（蓝色）以及印度的巨型海浪射电望远镜（红色）的X射线合成图像显示了Abell 2384中的超高温气体桥。这种新的多波长视图揭示了从一个星团中心的银河系中心超大质量黑洞射出的射流的影响。喷气机是如此强大，以至于弯曲了气体桥的形状，该气体桥延伸了超过300万光年，质量约为6万亿太阳。这幅新的多波长图揭示了其中一个星团中星系中心超大质量黑洞的喷射效果。喷射的能量如此之大，以至于扭曲了气桥的形状。气桥的长度超过300万光年，质量大约相当于6万亿颗太阳。
