NuSTAR Observes a Triple Cluster Merger
February 20th, 2026
A Chandra image of Abell 1750. Image credit: Scott Randall (Harvard | CfA) & Esra Bulbul (MPE)

Clusters of galaxies are the most massive gravitationally bound structures in the Universe, formed by the collapse of density peaks in the filamentary primordial dark matter structure. Investigations of their properties, like mass, number density, and size,  provide powerful probes of fundamental cosmological parameters. However, accurate prediction of the mass of galaxy clusters requires deep understanding of the processes in the intra-cluster medium (ICM), a hot, diffuse gas that fills the volume between cluster member galaxies. The thermal state of the ICM is responsible for a large percentage of the pressure support that balances a cluster’s gravitational collapse, but other astrophysical processes may also be significant, including turbulence, magnetic fields and relativistic electron (cosmic-ray) pressure. The Abell 1750 galaxy cluster is bright in high-energy X-rays, possibly due to it being in the early stages of a merger of three galaxy clusters along a cosmic filament. NuSTAR observations over the past week were performed to probe non-thermal processes in the ICM. Combined with radio maps of the cluster and low-energy X-ray measurements by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, these NuSTAR observations will quantify the non-thermal pressure support in the cluster, improve measurements of cluster mass, and help to identify differences between merging and relaxed galaxy clusters.