Chandra Release - October 26, 2010

Visual Description: 3C 186

3C 186 is a galaxy cluster with a central quasar shown in X-ray and optical light.   At the center of the image, there is a small bright blue-white dot. Around the bright dot is a small hazy cloud-like shape of blue that vaguely looks like a tiny mudpuppy swimming in a darker blue cloud in the direction of the upper left.  Surrounding the inner cloud, there are a few dimmer blue-white objects and some brighter yellow-white objects, which all appear as dots of different sizes against the dark background of space. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory provides the X-ray data in blue of the bright core of relatively cool gas surrounding the quasar. This was the most distant such object observed at the time of capture, and could provide insight into the triggering of quasars and the growth of galaxy clusters.  Chandra shows emission from gas surrounding the point-like quasar near the center of the cluster. Chandra X-ray spectra show that the temperature of the gas drops from 80 million degrees on the outskirts of the cluster down to 30 million in the core. This drop in temperature occurs because intense X-ray emission from the gas cools it. Optical data from the Gemini telescope in yellow-white show the stars and galaxies in the field of view.