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A cosmic 'pile-up' between four galaxy clusters that has taken place over 350million years has been pieced together by scientists.

The investigation into how Abell 2744 - nicknamed Pandora's Cluster - came to be formed is likely to provide researchers with significant insights into the nature of dark matter.

They pieced together the cluster's complex and violent history using telescopes in space and on the ground, including ESO’s Very Large Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope

Lead researcher Julian Merten said: 'Like a crash investigator piecing together the cause of an accident, we can use observations of these cosmic pile-ups to reconstruct events that happened over a period of hundreds of millions of years.

'This can reveal how structures form in the Universe, and how different types of matter interact with each other when they are smashed together.'

Abell 2744 is the result of a simultaneous collision of at least four separate galaxy clusters and this complex collision has produced strange effects that have never been seen together before.

When huge clusters of galaxies crash together, the resulting mess is a treasure trove of information for astronomers. 

Researcher Renato Dupke said: 'We nicknamed it Pandora's Cluster ... >>>