NASA’s Chandra Rings in New Year With Champagne Cluster - UNIVERSE

X-ray: NASA/CXC/UCDavis/F. Bouhrik et al.; Optical:Legacy Survey/DECaLS/BASS/MzLS; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/P. Edmonds and L. Frattare

Celebrate the New Year with the “Champagne Cluster,” a galaxy cluster seen in this new image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and optical telescopes.

Astronomers discovered this galaxy cluster Dec. 31, 2020. The date, combined with the bubble-like appearance of the galaxies and the superheated gas seen with Chandra observations (represented in purple), inspired the scientists to nickname the galaxy cluster the Champagne Cluster, a much easier-to-remember name than its official designation of RM J130558.9+263048.4.

The new composite image shows that the Champagne Cluster is actually two galaxy clusters in the process of merging to form an even larger cluster. Multimillion-degree gas in galaxy clusters usually takes on an approximately circular or moderately oval shape in images, but in the Champagne Cluster it is more widely spread from top to bottom, revealing the presence of the two colliding clusters. Two clumps of individual galaxies making up the colliding clusters can be seen toward the top and bottom of center. (The image has been rotated clockwise by 90 degrees so that North points to the right.)

The hot gas outweighs the combined mass in all of the hundred-plus individual galaxies in the newly forming cluster. The clusters also contain even larger amounts of unseen dark matter, the mysterious substance that pervades the universe.

In addition to the Chandra data, this new image contains optical data from the Legacy Surveys (red, green, and blue), which consists of three individual and complementary surveys from various telescopes in Arizona and Chile.

The Champagne Cluster is a member of a rare class of merging clusters, which includes the well-known Bullet Cluster, where the hot gas in each cluster has collided and slowed down, and there is a clear separation between the hot gas and the most massive galaxy in each cluster.

By comparing the data with computer simulations, astronomers came up with two possibilities for the history of the Champagne Cluster. One is that the two clusters already collided with each other over two billion years ago. After the collision the two clusters traveled outward and then were pulled back toward each other by gravity, and are now heading into a second collision. The other idea is that a single collision occurred about 400 million years ago, and the two clusters are now traveling away from each other after that collision. Researchers think further studies of the Champagne Cluster can potentially teach them how dark matter reacts to a high-speed collision.

A paper describing these results recently appeared in The Astrophysical Journal and is available online. The authors of the paper are Faik Bouhrik, Rodrigo Stancioli, and David Wittman, all from the University of California, Davis.

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

Visual Description

This release features a composite image of a galaxy cluster discovered on New Year’s Eve day, 2020.

The cluster appears here as a large collection of brilliant white lights, each a distinct galaxy. A neon purple cloud stretches across the cluster’s crowded core. Many of the hundred-plus galaxies in the cluster are in two clumps of galaxies towards the top and bottom of center. Some are encircled by a faint glowing haze, while a few foreground stars gleam with diffraction spikes. Some of the smaller galaxies are tinted blue, orange, or red, and some appear more oblong than round, suggesting spiral shapes viewed edge-on.

The neon purple cloud sits at the heart of the image, surrounding the most densely-packed part of the cluster. This cloud, which spreads vertically across the cluster, is multimillion-degree gas observed by Chandra. The two clumps of observable galaxies, and the spread of superheated gas, reveal that the Champagne Cluster is in fact two clusters in the process of colliding.

With the two clusters of sparkling light clinking together, and the auspicious discovery date, astronomers have dubbed the merged cosmic structure “The Champagne Cluster”. 

Source: NASA's Chandra Rings in New Year With Champagne Cluster - NASA 

First breathing 'lung-on-chip' developed using genetically identical cells - Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes - Biomedical technology

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute and AlveoliX have developed the first human lung-on-chip model using stem cells taken from only one person. These chips simulate breathing motions and lung disease in an individual, holding promise for testing treatments for infections like tuberculosis (TB) and delivering personalized medicine.

The research is published in the journal Science Advances.

Air sacs in the lungs called alveoli are the essential site of gas exchange and also an important barrier against inhaled viruses and bacteria that cause respiratory diseases like flu or TB.

Researchers have been working to recreate the battle between human cells and bacteria in the lab by building a lung-on-a-chip: small units of human lung on a plastic chip containing tiny channels and compartments. In this case, they aimed to recreate air sacs to understand how they respond to infection.

Until now, these lung-on-chip devices have been made of a mixture of patient-derived and commercially available cells, meaning they can't fully replicate the lung function or disease progression of a single individual.

In the study, the team at the Crick developed a new lung-on-chip model that contains only genetically identical cells derived from stem cells from a single donor.

Based on a protocol developed previously by the lab, the team produced type I and II alveolar epithelial cells and vascular endothelial cells from human-induced pluripotent stem cells, cells that can virtually become any cell in the body. These epithelial and endothelial cells are separately grown on the top and bottom of a very thin membrane in a device manufactured by biotechnology company AlveoliX to recreate an air sac barrier.

To further simulate the human lung, AlveoliX has designed specialized machines to impose rhythmic three-dimensional stretching forces on the recreated air sac barrier, mimicking the motion of breathing. This stimulates the formation of microvilli, a key feature of alveolar epithelial cells, to increase surface area for lung functions (image).

Next, the scientists added immune cells called macrophages into the chip, again produced from the stem cells of the same donor, before adding TB bacteria to simulate the early stages of the disease.

In the chips infected with TB, the team reported large macrophage clusters containing necrotic cores, a group of dead macrophages in the center, surrounded by live macrophages. Eventually, five days after infection, the endothelial and epithelial cell barriers collapsed, showing that the air sac function had broken down.

Max Gutierrez, Principal Group Leader of the Host-Pathogen Interactions in Tuberculosis Laboratory at the Crick and senior author, said, "Given the increasing need for non-animal technologies, organ-on-chip approaches are becoming ever more important to recreate human systems, avoiding differences in lung anatomy, makeup of immune cells and disease development between animals and humans.

"Composed of entirely genetically identical cells, the chips could be built from stem cells from people with particular genetic mutations. This would allow us to understand how infections like TB will impact an individual and test the effectiveness of treatments like antibiotics."

Jakson Luk, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Host-Pathogen Interactions in Tuberculosis Laboratory and first author, said, "TB is a slow-moving disease, with months between infection and the development of symptoms, so there's an increasing need to understand what's happening in the unseen early stages.

"We were successfully able to mimic these initial events in TB progression, giving a holistic picture of how different lung cells respond to infections. We're excited that the new model could be applied to a huge range of research, such as other respiratory infections or lung cancer, and we're now looking at refining the chip by incorporating other important cell types." 

by The Francis Crick Institute

edited by Stephanie Baum, reviewed by Andrew Zinin 

Source: First breathing 'lung-on-chip' developed using genetically identical cells