Astronomers study galaxy cluster growth

TOKYO, April 7 (UPI) -- A team of scientists from Japan and Taiwan says it has uncovered details explaining the growth of galaxy clusters.

Researchers from Tokyo's Riken Institute and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taipei said their discovery concerning galaxy clusters -- the largest gravitationally bound objects known to exist -- offers new clues about the evolution of our universe.

The scientists said they studied galaxy clusters using Suzaku, an X-ray astronomical satellite developed in Japan, and compared that data with the U.S. Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a spectroscopic survey by the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico.

Combined with a gravitational lensing study using Japan's Subaru Telescope and data from the Hubble Space Telescope, the scientists said their findings provide a detailed picture of how cluster growth is affected by the large-scale structure of the surrounding universe.

The complex research is detailed in the April 9th issue of The Astrophysical Journal.