Astronomers managed to precisely map out the mass of MCS J0416.1-2403, a massive galaxy cluster 160 trillion times the mass of the Sun, using the Hubble Space Telescope.

Mathilde Jauzac, from the Astrophysics and Cosmology Research Unit in South Africa, said that the depth of the data allowed them to see faint objects and identify more galaxies than ever before.

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She explained that even though strong lensing magnifies the galaxies they are still very far and faint. The depth of the data they had can identify distant background galaxies.

Astronomers identified 51 new multiple galaxies around the cluster, quadrupling the number found in previous surveys.

Jean-Paul Kneid, a colleague of Jauzac, said that although they've known how to map a cluster of galaxies using strong lenses for more than twenty years, it's taken them a long time to get a telescope that can make deep and sharp observations on a system as complicated as MCS J0416.1-2403

The astronomers modeled the mass of both normal and dark matter within MCS J0416.1-2403 by studying 57 galaxies, making their map twice as good as any previous models of the cluster.

They found out that the MCS J0416.1-2403, which is said to be over 650,000 light-years across, has 160 trillion times mass compared to the sun.

Astronomers also measured the warping of space-time with high precision by pinpointing where the mass resides within the cluster.

Kneib discussed by using a Frontier Fields observation and gravitational lensing techniques they opened up a way to precisely characterize an object despite its distance.

He stressed that they will not stop there, they would still want to get a full picture of the mass by also using weak lensing measurements.