Pandora’s cluster (VLT view)

This image from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile shows a wide view of the merging galaxy cluster Abell 2744. This object has been nicknamed Pandora’s Cluster because so many different and strange phenomena have been unleashed by a huge collision that occurred over a period of 350 million years. A simultaneous pile-up between at least four separate clusters produced strange effects that have never been seen together before. The VLT data were used to study the distribution of dark matter in this complex cluster.