Here is one of the largest objects that anyone will ever see on the sky. Each of these fuzzy blobs is a galaxy, together making up the Perseus Cluster , one of the closest clusters of galaxies . The cluster is seen through a foreground of faint stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy . Near the cluster center, roughly 250 million light-years away, is the cluster's dominant galaxy NGC 1275, seen above as the large galaxy on the image left. A prodigious source of x-rays and radio emission, NGC 1275 accretes matter as gas and galaxies fall into it. The Perseus Cluster of Galaxies is part of the Pisces-Perseus supercluster spanning over 15 degrees and containing over 1,000 galaxies. At the distance of NGC 1275, this view covers about 7.5 million light-years .
Media Credits & Attribution
Credit & Copyright: [Jean-Charles Cuillandre](mailto:jcc at cfht dot hawaii dot edu) ( CFHT ) & [Giovanni Anselmi](mailto:redazione at coelum dot com) ( Coelum Astronomia ), Hawaiian Starlight

