It was initially detected in 2010 during a 2,500 square degree survey of the southern sky using the Sunyaev–Zeldovich effect by the South Pole Telescope collaboration.

Owing to its extreme properties, the Phoenix Cluster has been extensively studied and is considered one of the most important class of objects of its type.

[7] The central elliptical cD galaxy of this cluster, Phoenix A (RBS 2043, 2MASX J23444387-4243124), hosts an active galactic nucleus that has been described as sharing both the properties of being a quasar and a type 2 Seyfert galaxy, which is powered by a central supermassive black hole.

Data from observations indicate that hot gas is cooling in the central regions at a rate of 3,820 M☉/yr, the highest ever recorded.

M. Brockamp and colleagues had used a modelling of the innermost stellar density of the central galaxy and the adiabatic process that fuels the growth of its central black hole to create a calorimetric tool to measure the black hole's mass.

[10] The team deduced an energy conversion parameter and related it to the behavior of the hot intracluster gas, the AGN feedback parameter, and the dynamics and density profiles of the galaxy to create an evolutionary modelling of how the central black hole may have grown in the past.