The Hydra Cluster (or Abell 1060) is a cluster of galaxies that contains 157 bright galaxies and can be viewed from earth in the constellation Hydra. The cluster spans about ten million light years and has an unusual high proportion of dark matter. The cluster is part of the Hydra-Centaurus Supercluster located 158 million light years from earth. The cluster's largest galaxies are elliptical galaxies NGC 3309 and NGC 3311 and the spiral galaxy NGC 3312 all having a diameter of about 150,000 light years. In spite of a nearly circular appearance on the sky, there is evidence in the galaxy velocities for a clumpy, three-dimensional distribution.
Famous quotes containing the words hydra and/or cluster:
“A part, a large part, of travelling is an engagement of the ego v. the world.... The world is hydra headed, as old as the rocks and as changing as the sea, enmeshed inextricably in its ways. The ego wants to arrive at places safely and on time.”
—Sybille Bedford (b. 1911)
“Next week Reagan will probably announce that American scientists have discovered that the entire U.S. agricultural surplus can be compacted into a giant tomato one thousand miles across, which will be suspended above the Kremlin from a cluster of U.S. satellites flying in geosynchronous orbit. At the first sign of trouble the satellites will drop the tomato on the Kremlin, drowning the fractious Muscovites in ketchup.”
—Alexander Cockburn (b. 1941)