The final frontier of the Frontier Fields

The NASA/ESA Hubble Telescope has peered across six billion light years of space to resolve extremely faint features of the galaxy cluster Abell 370 that have not been seen before. Imaged here in stunning detail, Abell 370 is part of the Frontier Fields programme which uses massive galaxy clusters to study the mysteries of dark matter and the very early Universe.

Six billion light-years away in the constellation Cetus (the Sea Monster), Abell 370 is made up of hundreds of galaxies [1]. Already in the mid-1980s higher-resolution images of the cluster showed that the giant luminous arc in the lower left of the image was not a curious structure within the cluster, but rather an astrophysical phenomenon: the gravitationally lensed image of a galaxy twice as far away as the cluster itself. Hubble helped show that this arc is composed of two distorted images of an ordinary spiral galaxy that just happens to lie behind the cluster.

Abell 370’s enormous gravitational influence warps the shape of spacetime around it, causing the light of background galaxies to spread out along multiple paths and appear both distorted and magnified. The effect can be seen as a series of streaks and arcs curving around the centre of the image. Massive galaxy clusters can therefore act like natural telescopes, giving astronomers a close-up view of the very distant galaxies behind the cluster — a glimpse of the Universe in its infancy, only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.

This image of Abell 370 was captured as part of the Frontier Fields programme, which used a whopping 630 hours of Hubble observing time, over 560 orbits of the Earth. Six clusters of galaxies were imaged in exquisite detail, including Abell 370 which was the very last one to be finished. An earlier image of this object  — using less observation time and therefore not recording such faint detail — was published in 2009.

During the cluster observations, Hubble also looked at six “parallel fields”, regions near the galaxy clusters which were imaged with the same exposure times as the clusters themselves. Each cluster and parallel field were imaged in infrared light by the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), and in visible light by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).

The Frontier Fields programme produced the deepest observations ever made of galaxy clusters and the magnified galaxies behind them. These observations are helping astronomers understand how stars and galaxies emerged out of the dark ages of the Universe, when space was dark, opaque, and filled with hydrogen.

Studying massive galaxy clusters like Abell 370 also helps with measuring the distribution of normal matter and dark matter within such clusters [heic1506]. By studying its lensing properties, astronomers have determined that Abell 370 contains two large, separate clumps of dark matter, contributing to the evidence that this massive galaxy cluster is actually the result of two smaller clusters merging together.

Now that the observations for the Frontier Fields programme are complete, astronomers can use the full dataset to explore the clusters, their gravitational lensing effects and the magnified galaxies from the early Universe in full detail.
Notes

[1] Galaxy clusters are the most massive structures in the Universe that are held together by gravity, generally thought to have formed when smaller groups of galaxies smashed into each other in ever-bigger cosmic collisions. Such clusters can contain up to 1000 galaxies, along with hot intergalactic gas that often shines brightly at X-ray wavelengths, all bound together primarily by the gravity of dark matter.

The last of the Frontier Fields — Abell 370

With the final observation of the distant galaxy cluster Abell 370 — some five billion light-years away — the Frontier Fields program came to an end.

Abell 370 is one of the very first galaxy clusters in which astronomers observed the phenomenon of gravitational lensing, the warping of spacetime by the cluster’s gravitational field that distorts the light from galaxies lying far behind it. This manifests as arcs and streaks in the picture, which are the stretched images of background galaxies.

Credit:

NASA, ESA/Hubble, HST Frontier Fields

Abell 370 parallel field

While one eye of Hubble was observing its main target, the massive galaxy cluster Abell 370, the second eye — another instrument — was looking at a part of the sky right next to the cluster.

Although not as spectacular as the light-bending clusters, these parallel fields are as deep as the main images and can even compete with the famous Hubble Deep Field as regards depth. They are therefore a valuable tool for studying the evolution of galaxies from the early epochs of the Universe until today.

Credit:

NASA, ESA/Hubble, HST Frontier Fields

Digitized sky survey image of Abell 370 (ground-based image)

This image is a colour composite made from exposures from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2). The field of view is approximately 2.2 x 2.2 degrees.

Credit:

NASA, ESA and Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin.

Abell 370 (seen in 2009)

This image of Abell 370 was released in 2009. Compared to the new image, which contains more observation time, less structures are visible and faint objects have disappeared — the new image has increased the depth of the image dramatically, clearly showing the benefit of additional observation time. A direct comparison between both images can be seen here.

Credit:

ESA/Hubble


VIDEOS  .

Zoom-in on Abell 370



This zoom starts with a ground-based view of the sky and zooms in on the distant galaxy cluster Abell 370, as seen by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

The mass of the cluster is large enough to bend the light of more distant objects along the line of sight. This creates interesting distortions, fascinating arcs and it even magnifies objects which would otherwise be to faint and tiny to be seen by Hubble.

Credit:

ESA/Hubble
Music: Richard Hasbia "Stan Dart"

Pan across Abell 370

This video pans across the massive galaxy cluster Abell 370, the last cluster to be observed as part of the Frontier Fields programme. The huge mass of the cluster bends the light from more distant objects, creating distorted and magnified images of them. This allows astronomers to calculate the total mass of the cluster — both normal matter and dark matter — and to investigate objects in the early Universe that would be otherwise too faint and tiny for Hubble to see. Astronomers believe this distortion is caused by dark matter that holds together the mix of galaxies and intergalactic hot gas.

Credit:

ESA/Hubble
Music: Richard Hasbia "Stan Dart"

Increased depth of Abell 370


The first Hubble image of the Abell 370 cluster was published in 2009. With additional observation time the depth of the image has been increased — making fainter and more distant objects visible in the final image.

Credit:
ESA/Hubble
Music: Richard Hasbia "Stan Dart"

Comparison of Abell 370 in 2009 and 2016


Drag green handle to reveal images

This picture of the galaxy cluster Abell 370, compares the image of the cluster from 2009 and the new image — containing more data — from 2016. With additional observation time the depth of the image has been increased — making fainter and more distant objects visible in the final image.
The image released in 2009 was cut more than the new image, causing the dark corners.

Credit


ESA/Hubble

Fuente: ESA/Hubble Information Centre

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