Free Astronomy Magazine March-April 2025

MARCH-APRIL 2025 its predecessor camera MOSAIC II) and the Gemini South telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, funded in part by NSF and operated by NSF NOIRLab, to examine the cluster through the Antlia Cluster Project. In more re- cent years, researchers have investi- gated the cluster from space- and ground-based observatories. These combined efforts have revealed a dynamic menagerie of rarer galaxy types within the cluster. The Antlia Cluster is dominated by two massive elliptical galaxies — NGC 3268 (center) and NGC 3258 (lower right). These central galaxies are surrounded by a number of faint dwarf galaxies. Researchers believe these two galaxies are in the process of merging, based on X-ray observations that revealed a ‘rope’ of globular clusters along the peak area of light between them. This may be evidence that the Antlia cluster is really two smaller clusters that are combining.