                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                 2023 June 9

                        Pandora's Cluster of Galaxies
    Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ivo Labbe (Swinburne), Rachel Bezanson
        (University of Pittsburgh), Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

   Explanation: This deep field mosaicked image presents a stunning view
   of galaxy cluster Abell 2744 from the James Webb Space Telescope's
   NIRCam. Also dubbed Pandora's Cluster, Abell 2744 itself appears to be
   a ponderous merger of three different massive galaxy clusters some 3.5
   billion light-years away toward the constellation Sculptor. Dominated
   by dark matter, the mega-cluster warps and distorts the fabric of
   spacetime, gravitationally lensing even more distant objects. Redder
   than the Pandora cluster galaxies many of the lensed sources are very
   distant galaxies in the early Universe, stretched and distorted into
   arcs. Of course distinctive diffraction spikes mark foreground Milky
   Way stars. At the Pandora Cluster's estimated distance this cosmic box
   spans about 6 million light-years. But don't panic. You can explore the
   tantalizing region in a 2 minute video tour.

                      Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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