Giant Cluster of Galaxies 8.5 Billion Light Years Away

Gonzalez et al. (2015) present the discovery of a giant cluster of galaxies located 8.5 billion light years away. This cluster of galaxies is called Massive Overdense Object (MOO) J1142+1527 and it was detected using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). Additionally, using the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA) to observe a phenomenon known as the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, MOO J1142+1527 is estimated to have 1.1 ± 0.2 quadrillion times the mass of the Sun. One quadrillion is a thousand trillion. MOO J1142+1527 is the most massive known cluster of galaxies existing that far back in space and time.

Reference:
Gonzalez et al. (2015), “The Massive and Distant Clusters of WISE Survey: MOO J1142+1527”, arXiv:1509.01989 [astro-ph.CO]