Phoenix Cluster Sets Record Pace for Creating Stars
Posted on August 18, 2012
Astronomers have found an extraordinary galaxy cluster that is creating stars at an amazing rate. The cluster is breaking cosmic records. Officially known as SPT-CLJ2344-4243, the galaxy cluster has been dubbed the Phoenix Cluster because it is located in the constellation of the Phoenix, and because of its remarkable properties. The discovery of the cluster was made using the National Science Foundation's South Pole Telescope.
Stars are forming in this object at the highest rate ever seen in the middle of a galaxy cluster. The object also is the most powerful producer of X-rays of any known cluster. The rate of hot gas cooling in the central regions of the cluster is the largest ever observed. An artist's impression of the galaxy at the center of the Phoenix Cluster is pictured below.
Michael McDonald, a Hubble Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, says, "The mythology of the Phoenix - a bird rising from the dead - is a perfect way to describe this revived object. While galaxies at the center of most clusters have been dead for billions of years, the central galaxy in this cluster seems to have come back to life."
McDonald is lead author of a research paper on the galaxy cluster published here in the August 16th issue of Nature.
Astronomers think that the supermassive black hole in the central galaxy of clusters pumps energy into the system, preventing cooling of gas from causing a burst of star formation. With its black hole not producing powerful enough jets, the center of the Phoenix Cluster is buzzing with stars that are forming 20 times faster than in the Perseus Cluster. This rate is the highest seen in the center of a galaxy cluster and is comparable to the highest seen anywhere in the universe. The frenetic pace of star birth and cooling of gas in Phoenix are causing both the galaxy and the black hole to add mass very quickly. The astronomers believe this phase growth rate is unsustainable and will be short-lived (about a hundred million years).