Deep fields & lensing

Ghost Light Galaxy Clusters

January 4, 2023 · NASA · MOO J1014+0038; SPT-CL J2106-5844

Zoom to full resolution Original on NASA ↗

These are Hubble Space Telescope images of two massive clusters of galaxies named MOO J1014+0038 (left panel) and SPT-CL J2106-5844 (right panel). The artificially added blue color is translated from Hubble data that captured a phenomenon called intracluster light. This extremely faint glow traces a smooth distribution of light from wandering stars scattered across the cluster. Billions of years ago the stars were shed from their parent galaxies and now drift through intergalactic space.

About the colours

These images are a composite of separate exposures acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope using the WFC3/UVIS and WFC3/IR instruments. Several filters were used to sample infrared, and visible wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: MOO J1014+0038: Red: F160W Green: F105W, Blue: F814W SPT-CL J2106+5844: Red: F105W, Green: F814W, Blue: F606W