Perspective is Everything

Astronomers have spotted a huge cloud of fiery gas speeding through a distant cluster of galaxies. They say it is the biggest object of its kind ever seen.

The gas ball contains more matter than 1,000 billion Suns, and is plunging through the Abell 3266 cluster of galaxies at about 750 kilometres per second. The fireball is about 3 million light years across, roughly 5 billion times the diameter of the Solar System, and reaches temperatures of tens of millions of degrees.

"The size and velocity of this gas ball is truly fantastic," says Alexis Finoguenov, a physicist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and one of the scientists who made the find.

Finoguenov says that the fireball is likely to become a massive building block in the growing cluster, which contains hundreds of galaxies.

(From Nature Journal. Image: photo credit ESA)