Space
First Galaxies Of The Universe Lit Up Its Dark Ages
Sam Dastidar
First Posted: Jun 29, 2016 08:24 AM EDT
A collection of newly discovered galaxies are reportedly showing astronomers how the primordial universe broke free from its dark ages. The group of galaxies could have played an important part in shifting the universe from a time when it was opaque to its transparent era.
"Stars and black holes in the earliest, brightest galaxies must have pumped out so much ultraviolet light that they quickly broke up hydrogen atoms in the surrounding universe," said David Sobral, scientist at UK's Lancaster University. "The fainter galaxies seem to have stayed shrouded for a lot longer. Even when they eventually become visible, they show evidence of plenty of opaque material still in place around them".
Sobral led an international team of researchers in 2015 to detect many of these early galaxies using Chile's Very Large Telescope and Hawaii's Subaru and Keck telescopes. The scientists found that the first two members of the detected galaxies could have the first generation of stars. Called MASOSA and CR7, the two galaxies along with a previously discovered third galaxy known as Himiko, gave a hint that a huge population of similar celestial objects may still exist.
Around 150 million years after the Big Bang gave birth to the universe 13.8 billion years ago neutral hydrogen blocked the path of certain wavelengths of light. Subsequently, light began to gradually pass through the surroundings when the earliest stars split hydrogen apart and radiation began to prevail. The astronomers discovered that each of the newfound galaxies, they were researching about, contained a large bubble of charged gas around it. The occurrence suggests that the galaxies had still not broken free from the dark ages completely.
However, though such galaxies are numerous in number, they are hard to spot because they cannot build their own local bubbles as fast as bright galaxies can due to the blocking effect of the neutral hydrogen gas. The astronomers are now banking upon the James Webb Space Telescope, which will be up and running in the future, to know more about the intriguing objects. Meanwhile, you can see the images of the new found galaxies captured here.
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First Posted: Jun 29, 2016 08:24 AM EDT
A collection of newly discovered galaxies are reportedly showing astronomers how the primordial universe broke free from its dark ages. The group of galaxies could have played an important part in shifting the universe from a time when it was opaque to its transparent era.
"Stars and black holes in the earliest, brightest galaxies must have pumped out so much ultraviolet light that they quickly broke up hydrogen atoms in the surrounding universe," said David Sobral, scientist at UK's Lancaster University. "The fainter galaxies seem to have stayed shrouded for a lot longer. Even when they eventually become visible, they show evidence of plenty of opaque material still in place around them".
Sobral led an international team of researchers in 2015 to detect many of these early galaxies using Chile's Very Large Telescope and Hawaii's Subaru and Keck telescopes. The scientists found that the first two members of the detected galaxies could have the first generation of stars. Called MASOSA and CR7, the two galaxies along with a previously discovered third galaxy known as Himiko, gave a hint that a huge population of similar celestial objects may still exist.
Around 150 million years after the Big Bang gave birth to the universe 13.8 billion years ago neutral hydrogen blocked the path of certain wavelengths of light. Subsequently, light began to gradually pass through the surroundings when the earliest stars split hydrogen apart and radiation began to prevail. The astronomers discovered that each of the newfound galaxies, they were researching about, contained a large bubble of charged gas around it. The occurrence suggests that the galaxies had still not broken free from the dark ages completely.
However, though such galaxies are numerous in number, they are hard to spot because they cannot build their own local bubbles as fast as bright galaxies can due to the blocking effect of the neutral hydrogen gas. The astronomers are now banking upon the James Webb Space Telescope, which will be up and running in the future, to know more about the intriguing objects. Meanwhile, you can see the images of the new found galaxies captured here.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone