Pictured above are many types of galaxies captured by the Dark Energy Camera. At least five are easy to spot: the edge-on spiral on the right side, the pair of colliding spirals at the bottom center, a big spiral in the top-left and an elliptical on the far left.
A splatter of red, denoting galaxies, lies at the center of this image and extends toward the lower left. This is the remnant of a cosmic collision. Eons ago, one group of galaxies plunged into another at millions of miles per hour, leaving a wreckage in its wake. The galaxy cluster El Gordo is all that remains of this raucous event.
The Dark Energy Survey has posted this detailed image of the Fornax galaxy cluster. The survey will measure the distributions of galaxies that are far away from Earth and compare them to the patterns of galaxies closer to Earth. Differences in these patterns give indispensable clues about how dark energy has affected spacetime over the last several billions of years.
This image, taken by the Dark Energy Camera, shows the many different types of galaxies we observe in the night sky.
This image shows the galaxy cluster RX-J2248, named for the ROSAT X-ray telescope, with which it was discovered. It has hundreds of old red galaxies as well as a massive amount of dark matter.
Today’s photo is also of the Great Nebula in Orion, taken last month with the Dark Energy Camera on the Blanco 4-meter telescope in Chile.