Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Coma Berenices (Com)  ·  Contains:  IC 3946  ·  IC 3949  ·  IC 3955  ·  IC 3973  ·  IC 4040  ·  IC 4045  ·  IC 4051  ·  NGC 4854  ·  NGC 4860  ·  NGC 4864  ·  NGC 4865  ·  NGC 4869  ·  NGC 4871  ·  NGC 4873  ·  NGC 4874  ·  NGC 4881  ·  NGC 4883  ·  NGC 4886  ·  NGC 4889  ·  NGC 4895  ·  NGC 4898  ·  NGC 4907  ·  NGC 4908  ·  NGC 4911  ·  NGC 4919  ·  NGC 4921
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ACO 1656 Coma Supercluster, CosmiQbr
ACO 1656 Coma Supercluster
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ACO 1656 Coma Supercluster

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
ACO 1656 Coma Supercluster, CosmiQbr
ACO 1656 Coma Supercluster
Powered byPixInsight

ACO 1656 Coma Supercluster

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Description

All the stars have been removed from this image. Every object you see is a galaxy. The Coma Cluster (Abell 1656) is a super cluster of galaxies that contains, by some estimates, over 10,000 identified galaxies. The cluster is an average distance of 321 million light years from Earth, but with a diameter of 20 million light years. In contrast, our own Milky Way has only 156 galaxies (large and small) within that same volume (Milky Way being at the center). This image is dominated by the two supergiant elliptical galaxies NGC 4889 and NGC 4874. NGC 4889 is thought to be the most massive galaxy within 100 mega parsecs of Earth with a mass of up to 15 trillion solar masses (10 times the mass of the Milky Way). Many of the galaxies in the Coma cluster are ancient ellipticals, the result of many galactic mergers over the eons, as such they will appear more red than younger spiral galaxies, which are more blue due to their numerous star forming regions.

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