Star Trek: NASA Finds Galaxy Cluster Bearing “Uncanny Resemblance” to Enterprise

NASA has uncovered a galaxy cluster that it says bears an “uncanny resemblance” to the USS [...]

NASA has uncovered a galaxy cluster that it says bears an "uncanny resemblance" to the USS Enterprise from Star Trek.

The team that works the Chandra X-ray Observatory released an image of the cluster on Thursday. The composite image of the cluster dubbed Abell 1033 was created using X-ray, radio and optical data. The image actually shows two galaxies crashing into each other.

You can take a look for yourself in the video above.

"This extraordinarily energetic event, happening from the top to the bottom in the image, has produced turbulence and shock waves, similar to sonic booms produced by a plane moving faster than the speed of sound," the Chandra team says.

NASA calls galaxy clusters "the largest objects in the universe held together by gravity." They are collections of many galaxies:

"Galaxy clusters — cosmic structures containing hundreds or even thousands of galaxies — are the largest objects in the Universe held together by gravity. Multi-million-degree gas fills the space in between the individual galaxies. The mass of the hot gas is about six times greater than that of all the galaxies combined. This superheated gas is invisible to optical telescopes, but shines brightly in X-rays, so an X-ray telescope like NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is required to study it."

The discovery of Abell 1033 follows NASA naming a new star constellation after the famous Star Trek starship. The Enterprise was one of 21 new constellations named in honor of the 10th anniversary of NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Since these constellations can only be seen through the use of gamma rays, most of their names are somehow linked to gamma radiation, including several taken from popular culture such as the Hulk, Godzilla, the TARDIS, and yes, the Starship Enterprise.

"The engines of the most famous vessel in the Star Trek universe, the USS Enterprise, are powered by the annihilation of matter and antimatter, a process that produces energy in the form of gamma rays. More than half the gamma-ray sources cataloged by the Fermi mission come from a different type of engine — supermassive black holes in the cores of distant galaxies."

The USS Enterprise was the vessel of Captain James T. Kirk during his five-year Starfleet mission of exploration in Star Trek: The Original Series. The ship got a slight redesign and was introduced into the prequel Star Trek: Discovery at the end of CBS All Access series' first season.

The first season of Star Trek: Discovery is available to stream in its entirety on CBS All Access in the U.S., through CraveTV in Canada and through Netflix in other international markets.

Star Trek: Discovery Season Two is now filming in Toronto and will premiere on CBS All Access on January 17, 2019.

[H/T] CNET

0comments