Astronomers have uncovered evidence of a past collision involving the Perseus galaxy cluster, located 240 million light-years away. This discovery, facilitated by gravitational lensing, reveals a dark matter bridge connecting the Perseus cluster to the remnants of another object.
The Perseus cluster, boasting a mass 600 trillion times that of our Sun, was previously considered relatively stable. However, recent observations suggested ongoing activity, prompting further investigation.
By utilizing gravitational lensing techniques, researchers detected a dark matter concentration with an estimated mass of 200 trillion suns. This cluster is linked to Perseus by a dark matter bridge, strongly indicating a collision event that occurred approximately 5 billion years ago. These observations were conducted using the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, providing direct evidence of this ancient cosmic interaction and shedding light on the dynamics of dark matter within galaxy clusters.