Detecting giant galaxy cluster 8.5 billion light-years from Earth

Astronomers have discovered a huge collection of galaxies in the extremely remote region of the universe thanks to NASA's Spitzer space telescope and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

The collection of galaxies about 8.5 billion light-years from Earth is the largest structure ever found at such a long distance. This collection contains thousands of galaxies, each one containing hundreds of billions of stars.

Galaxies grow with time as new members are added. Peter Eisenhardt, NASA scientist, co-author of the report, said: ' Based on our understanding of galaxy clusters growing in the universe, this is one of the five largest assemblies that exist'. .

Giant galaxy cluster.

The discovery of a giant galaxy cluster called MOO J1142 + 1527 existed about 8.5 billion years ago from Earth. The red galaxies in the center of the image, are the center of the galaxy cluster.

In 2016, the team plans to screen for the largest galaxy in the set.'Once we find the largest cluster of galaxies, we can begin to look at the evolution of galaxies in harsh environments,' said Gonzalez, a member of the research team.

Because light takes time to reach Earth, we can see things as far as they exist in the past.

For example, we are seeing clusters of newly discovered galaxies - known as Massive Object Overdense (MOO) J1142 + 1527 - that existed about 8.5 billion years ago, long before Earth was formed.

In the images obtained from Spitzer telescopes, distant galaxies in red, whichever is closer will be white.

According to scientists, the set of galaxies MOO J1142 + 1527 may be one of the few galactic clusters that appeared ancient from the beginning when the universe was formed.