Abstract
During the past several years, ASCA has nearly completed mapping of gas temperatures in bright nearby clusters of galaxies. In several clusters, it discovered strong and irregular spatial temperature variations indicative of ongoing violent subcluster mergers. In other systems, the temperature distribution appears symmetric, indicating a relaxed state which is a necessary condition for reliable hydrostatic total mass measurements. I present a (very incomplete) review of these results, discuss their implications for understanding of physical processes in the intracluster gas and for the cluster mass measurements. I also mention some interesting studies that will become possible with the forthcoming Chandra X-ray observatory.
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