VLA Gives New Insight Into Galaxy Cluster’s Spectacular “Mini-Halo”

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VLA Gives New Insight Into Galaxy Cluster’s Spectacular “Mini-Halo”

VLA Gives New Insight Into Galaxy Cluster’s Spectacular “Mini-Halo”

Radio-emitting mini-halo in Perseus Cluster

Astronomers using the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) have discovered new details that are helping them decipher the mystery of how giant radio-emitting structures are formed at the center of a cluster of galaxies. The scientists studied a cluster of thousands of galaxies more than 250 million light-years from Earth, named the Perseus Cluster after the constellation in which it appears. Embedded within the center, the Perseus Cluster hosts a pool of superfast particles that emit radio waves, creating a radio structure known as a “mini-halo.” Mini-haloes have been found in about 30 galaxy clusters, but the halo in the Perseus Cluster is the largest known, about 1.3 million light-years in diameter, or 10 times the size of our Milky Way Galaxy. Radio emission in red; optical in white.

Credit: Gendron-Marsolais et al.; NRAO/AUI/NSF; NASA; SDSS.

Technical Details
Telescope	VLA; NASA; SDSS
Center	RA: 3:19:47.2, Dec: 41:30:47
Field of View	14.28 x 14.28 arcminutes

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VLA Gives New Insight Into Galaxy Cluster’s Spectacular “Mini-Halo”

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