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rich galaxy cluster
Coma Cluster
A gigantic galaxy cluster with more than 1,000 galaxies. This is where Fritz Zwicky found the first signs of dark matter in 1933 – Zwicky was Swiss!
Key figures
- Distance
- about 320 million light-years
- Galaxies
- over 1,000
- Constellation
- Coma Berenices
- Diameter
- about 20 million light-years
Interesting facts
- This is where the Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky discovered dark matter in 1933: the galaxies whizz about so fast that, without invisible mass, the cluster would have flown apart long ago.
- Most galaxies in the Coma Cluster are old, yellowish elliptical galaxies – in the dense crowd hardly any new stars are being born.
Fritz Zwicky
Zwicky (1898-1974) grew up in Glarus and did his research in California. He also predicted neutron stars and coined the term “supernova”. An asteroid and a crater on the Moon bear his name.
Where is it?
Coma Cluster belongs to the “The cosmic web” level of the Cosmic Zoom (field of view about 600 million light-years). Galaxies are spread out like dewdrops on a gigantic spider's web: in clusters and long filaments, with vast voids in between. Here the whole Local Group is a single point of light.
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