The morphology and dark matter distribution of the Coma cluster of galaxies from X-ray observations

The analysis of a spectral image of the Coma cluster obtained with a coded mask telescope flown as part of the Spacelab 2 mission is presented. The main cluster emission is elongated east-west and extends to a radius of at least 50 arcmin, while an additional region of X-ray emission is detected ∼50 arcmin to the south-west of the cluster centre. The energy range of the instrument and its imaging capabilities allow the temperature and density of the intracluster gas to be determined as a function of radius, and thus allow the total cluster mass profile to be determined