We analyze the XMM-Newton dataset of the interacting cluster of galaxies Abell 3528 located westward in the core of the Shapley Supercluster , the largest concentration of mass in the nearby Universe .
A3528 is formed by two interacting clumps ( A3528-N at North and A3528-S at South ) separated by 0.9 h _ { 70 } ^ { -1 } Mpc at redshift 0.053 . XMM-Newton data describe these clumps as relaxed structure with an overall temperature of 4.14 \pm 0.09 and 4.29 \pm 0.07 keV in A3528-N and A3528-S , respectively , and a core cooler by a factor 1.4–1.5 and super-solar metal abundance in the inner 30 arcsec .
These clumps are connected by a X-ray soft , bridge-like emission and present asymmetric surface brightness with significant excess in the North–West region of A3528-N and in the North–East area of A3528-S .
However , we do not observe any evidence of shock heated gas , both in the surface brightness and in the temperature map .
Considering also that the optical light distribution is more concentrated around A3528-N and makes A3528-S barely detectable , we do not find support to the originally suggested head-on pre-merging scenario and conclude that A3528 is in a off-axis post-merging phase , where the closest cores encounter happened about 1–2 Gyrs ago .