An international team involving scientists from the University of Paris-Saclay, CNRS, the University of Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier, Aix-Marseille University and the University Claude Bernard of Lyon, announced the discovery of a structure, or "proto-cluster" called PHz G237.01+42.50 (or G237 for short), dating from the most active period of the Universe and which should evolve into a supercluster of galaxies.
Discovered by Planck satellite, this proto-cluster of galaxies is intensely forming stars, at a high rate that is not consistent with current models.
Additional observations with several ground-based and space telescopes, including ESA’s Herschel, have confirmed its association with two strong concentrations of galaxies. Each of them is expected to collapse in about 10 billion years into a cluster of galaxies whose dark matter halo will have a mass of 500 to 600 trillions (millions of millions) solar masses, equivalent to the largest galaxy clusters today.
This discovery has been published in MNRAS and A&A.
The laboratories involved are IAS (CNRS/University of Paris-Saclay), IRAP (CNRS/University of Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier/CNES), IAP (CNRS/Sorbonne University), the LAM (CNRS/Aix-Marseille University/Cnes), and CRAL (CNRS/University Claude Bernard Lyon1/Ens de Lyon)
© ESA/Herschel and XMM-Newton ; NASA/Spitzer ; NAOJ/Subaru ; Large Binocular Telescope ; ESO/VISTA ; Polletta et al. 2021 ; Koyama et al. 2021
Press release of University Paris-Saclay:
https://www.universite-paris-saclay...
CNRS press release:
https://www.cnrs.fr/fr/une-nouvelle...
Bibliography:
A Planck-selected dusty proto-cluster at z=2.16 associated with a strong over-density of massive Hα emitting galaxies. Yusei Koyama, Maria del Carmen Polletta, Ichi Tanaka, Tadayuki Kodama, Hervé Dole, Geneviève Soucail, Brenda Frye, Matt Lehnert, Marco Scodeggio. MNRAS, 2021, 501, L1 https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.13614
Spectroscopic observations of PHz G237.01+42.50 : a galaxy protocluster at z=2.16 in the Cosmos field. M. Polletta, G. Soucail, H. Dole, M. D. Lehnert, E. Pointecouteau, G. Vietri, M. Scodeggio, L. Montier, Y. Koyama, G. Lagache, B. L. Frye, F. Cusano, and M. Fumana, 2021, A&A, Polletta et al. A&A, 2021, 654, A121 https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.04396