Centaurus Cluster
Galaxy cluster in the constellation Centaurus
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The Centaurus Cluster (A3526) is a cluster of hundreds of galaxies, located approximately 170 million light-years away in the Centaurus constellation. The brightest member galaxy is the elliptical galaxy NGC 4696 (~11m). The Centaurus cluster shares its supercluster, the Hydra–Centaurus Supercluster, with IC4329 Cluster and Hydra Cluster.
| Centaurus Cluster | |
|---|---|
| |
| Observation data (Epoch J2000) | |
| Constellation | Centaurus |
| Right ascension | 12h 48m 51.8s[1] |
| Declination | −41° 18′ 21″[1] |
| Brightest member | NGC 4696 |
| Number of galaxies | ~100[1] |
| Richness class | 0[2] |
| Bautz–Morgan classification | I–II [2] |
| Redshift | 0.01140 (3 418 km/s)[1] |
| Distance | 52.4 Mpc (170.9 Mly) h−1 0.705[1] |
| X-ray flux | 15.7×10−11 erg s−1 cm−2 (0.5–2 keV) [1] |
| Other designations | |
| Abell 3526[1] | |
The cluster consists of two different sub-groups of galaxies with different velocities.[3] Cen 30 is the main subgroup containing NGC 4696. Cen 45 which is centered on NGC 4709, is moving at 1500 km/s relative to Cen 30,[3] and is believed to be merging with the main cluster.[4]
Gallery
NGC 4696: a cosmic question mark
Chandra X-ray image showing the inner 6.7 arcminutes of the core of the Centaurus Cluster. This image shows the hot intracluster medium, at temperatures of a few tens of million kelvins.
Region around NGC 4709 (large galaxy in the middle) in the western part of the Centaurus Cluster.
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