Description: This image of Abell 1689 is a composite of data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (purple) and the Hubble Space Telescope (yellow). Abell 1689 is a massive cluster of galaxies that shows signs of merging activity. The long arcs in the optical image, the largest system of such arcs ever found, are caused by gravitational lensing of the background galaxies by matter in the galaxy cluster. Further studies of this cluster are needed to explain the lack of agreement between mass estimates based on the X-ray data and on the gravitational lensing.

Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray

Date: 2008

Persistent URL: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2008/a1689/

Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Gift line: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/E.-H Peng et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI