A Cluster Too Far

Astronomy Picture of the Day · 1998-09-08 · NASA (public domain)

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A Cluster Too Far — APOD for 1998-09-08

Why is this galaxy cluster so red? Nearby clusters have galaxies with colors that are much more yellow and blue. A leading explanation is that this cluster of galaxies lies so far across our universe (z~1) that cosmological time dilation significantly reddens the light. If true, this cluster might lie too far away to have formed in a dense universe, implying that our universe is not very dense. HST 035528+09435 is one of the reddest clusters found in the Hubble Space Telescope 's Medium Deep Survey . Astronomers will now work to confirm the high distance to this cluster , and contemplate what it signifies about the nature of our universe .

Astronomy Picture of the Day for 1998-09-08 — image & explanation courtesy of NASA (public domain), mirrored at Tukuk-OS for reading and search convenience.

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