Chandra Release - March 4, 2015

Visual Description: Abell 2597

This image shows a multiwavelength view of the galaxy cluster Abell 2597. The image features a mostly blue nebulous or cloudy structure with a bit of pinkish purple in the center, surrounded by small yellow dots on a black background. The object has a circular shape, with a few black or empty patches in it. Abell 2597 is located about one billion light years from Earth. This image contains X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (colored in blue), optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Digitized Sky Survey (in yellow) and emission from hydrogen atoms (pink-red) from the Walter Baade Telescope in Chile.  This galaxy cluster comes from a sample of over 200 that were studied to determine how giant black holes at their centers affect the growth and evolution of their host galaxy, as reported in our latest press release. This study revealed that an unusual form of cosmic precipitation enables a feedback loop of cooling and heating, stifling star formation in the middle of these galaxy clusters.