Chandra Release - August 2, 2023

Visual Description: El Gordo

The primary image in today's release features a field of distant galaxies and stars with a bright blue, cone-shaped cloud at its core. The cloud is superheated gas in the galaxy cluster known as "El Gordo", meaning "Fat One" in Spanish. "El Gordo" is an immensely hefty galaxy cluster, with a mass as much as 3 million billion times the mass of the Sun. 


In this composite image, the bright blue cloud has a cometary appearance, meaning it resembles a comet and its tail, with a bright tip that fades as the cone-shape widens. Here, the bright tip is positioned near our lower left, with the fading conical shape widening toward our upper right. In this image, the color blue represents X-ray light observed by Chandra. The properties of the gas cloud suggests a multi-million mile an hour collision of two galaxy clusters. This collision produces more X-rays than any other galaxy cluster observed at its distance or beyond. 


Throughout the gas cloud, and in the background, are thousands of distant galaxies and stars, in whites, golden oranges, and blues. From this distance, some resemble simple specks of light. Others are slightly larger and feature refraction spikes, or upon close inspection, discernible spiraling arms. Many of the distant galaxies behind the cluster appear distorted or elongated. This visual distortion is due to El Gordo's great mass, which bends the light of these galaxies and distorts their appearance.