Chandra constraints on the thermal conduction in the intracluster plasma of A2142

In this Letter, we use the recent Chandra observation of Abell 2142 reported by Markevitch ct al, to put constraints on thermal conduction in the intracluster plasma. We show that the observed sharp temperature gradient requires that classical conductivity has to be reduced at least by a factor of between 250 and 2500. The result provides a direct constraint on an important physical process relevant to the gas in the cores of clusters of galaxies.