Imagen de comparación: HAWK-I y Hubble exploran un cúmulo con la masa de dos mil billones de soles



Esta imagen muestra algo espectacular: ¡un cúmulo de galaxias tan masivo que está deformando el espacio a su alrededor! El cúmulo, cuyo corazón está en el centro de la imagen, recibe el nombre de RCS2 J2327, y es uno de los cúmulos más masivos que se conocen a su distancia o más allá.
Los objetos masivos como RCS2 J2327 tienen una influencia tan grande sobre su entorno que, efectivamente, deforman el espacio que los rodea – a esto se le conoce como efecto de lente gravitacional, y puede causar que la luz proveniente de objetos más distantes se curve, distorsione y amplifique, permitiéndonos ver galaxias que, de otro modo, estarían demasiado lejos de nosotros como para poder detectarlas. Las lentes gravitacionales fueron predichas por la Teoría de la Relatividad General de Albert Einstein, y pueden observarse de tres maneras distintas: lente gravitacional fuerte, débil y microlente. A diferencia de la lente gravitacional fuerte, que produce imágenes espectaculares de galaxias distorsionadas, arcos de gran amplitud y fenómenos conocidos como anillos de Einstein, la lente gravitacional débil se estudia más a nivel estadístico – pero ofrece una forma de medir las masas de objetos cósmicos, como se muestra aquí.
Esta imagen es una combinación de observaciones realizadas por el instrumento HAWK-I, instalado en el Very Large Telescope de ESO, y por la Cámara Avanzada para rastreos, instalada en el Telescopio Espacial Hubble de NASA/ESA, e ilustra un enfoque colaborativo notablemente detallado del estudio de lentes gravitacionales débiles en el cosmos. ¡El estudio mostró que RCS2 J2327 contiene la masa de dos mil billones de soles!
Usando la barra deslizante se hace visible un mapa de la masa, que muestra la cantidad de masa que se espera contenga cada parte del cúmulo en su interior. La creación del mapa fue posible gracias a las mediciones exactas de la cantidad de lente gravitacional en las distintas áreas del cúmulo.
Enlaces
- HAWK-I y Hubble exploran un cúmulo con la masa de dos mil billones de soles
- Cúmulo RCS2 J2327
- Artículo científico de Schrabback et al.
Crédito
ESO
Sobre la Comparación de la Imagen
Identificador: | potw1752a |
Fecha de publicación: | 25 de Diciembre de 2017 a las 06:00 |
Imágenes
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