The Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IKI RAS) reports that data collected by the ART-XC telescope aboard the Spektr-RG observatory have made it possible to form an accurate hard X-ray map of the galaxy cluster in the Coma Berenices constellation.
Recall that the Russian device ART-XC is one of two X-ray telescopes in the arsenal of the Spektr-RG apparatus. The second instrument is the German telescope eROSITA.
Both instruments completed their first all-sky survey this month. In the future, seven more such surveys are to be performed: combining these data will allow achieving a sensitivity record.
Now the observatory continues the review, accumulating the exposure and improving the sensitivity of the resulting X-ray sky map. Before leaving for the second review, to test and demonstrate the capabilities of the ART-XC telescope for studying extended sources, observations were made of the famous cluster of galaxies in the constellation Coma Cluster.
The cluster was observed for two days, June 16β17. At the same time, the ART-X telescope operated in scan mode, one of the three available modes.
βTogether with the data obtained in December 2019, this made it possible to build a detailed map of the distribution of hot gas in this cluster in hard X-rays up to a radius of R500. This is the distance at which the density of matter in the cluster is 500 times higher than the average density in the Universe, that is, almost to the theoretical boundary of the cluster, βIKI RAS notes.
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Source: 3dnews.ru