A rich galaxy cluster located about 320 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices, containing over 1,000 galaxies. It played a crucial role in the discovery of dark matter by Fritz Zwicky in 1933.
Named after the constellation Coma Berenices (Berenice's Hair), where it appears in the sky. The constellation itself was named after Queen Berenice II of Egypt, who cut off her hair as an offering to the gods for her husband's safe return from war.
The Coma Cluster is historically famous as the place where dark matter was first discovered - Fritz Zwicky noticed that the galaxies were moving too fast to be held together by the gravity of visible matter alone, leading to the realization that most of the universe is made of invisible dark matter! The cluster is so massive that it bends space-time, acting like a cosmic magnifying glass for more distant galaxies.
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