Astronomers have discovered the secret of the rapid growth of galaxies in the early Universe
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- Astronomers have discovered the secret of the rapid growth of galaxies in the early Universe
An international team of astronomers has discovered colossal reserves of cold molecular gas in the massive galaxy REBELS-25, which existed just 700 million years after the Big Bang. This was reported by Universe Today magazine on June 23.
The study helped scientists understand how the first structures in the universe reached abnormally large sizes in a relatively short period of time. The period of existence of REBELS-25 coincides with the era of reionization, when the cosmos emerged from the state of the "dark ages" and became transparent to light.
Karin Seskon, Head of research and graduate student at Leiden University in the Netherlands
Our results show that galaxies that existed just 700 million years after the Big Bang already contained large reserves of cold gas suitable for star formation. Thanks to these deep observations with the help of the Large Antenna Array of the National Science Foundation of the USA (NSF VLA. We were able to overcome the difficulties associated with the study of cosmic microwave background radiation.
The specialists used data from the VLA radio telescope system in the USA and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) complex in Chile. The VLA detected a weak low-energy carbon monoxide signal, which was the most distant detection of such radiation in the history of science. Comparing these data with ALMA measurements made it possible to accurately determine the density and temperature of the substance.
Prior to this discovery, scientists had only assumed that the rapid growth of early galaxies was provided by powerful reserves of "fuel," but there was no direct evidence of the existence of such volumes of cold gas at such early stages of the universe's development.
Jacqueline Hodge, Professor and Supervisor of Karin Sexon
This discovery is an exciting announcement of what will be possible with the next generation of VLA (ngVLA. — Ed.). The new array will allow us to study cold gas in many young galaxies, including those that existed in even earlier times.
It is expected that the launch of ngVLA will make it possible to carry out such measurements 10 times faster and study systems that originated during the "Cosmic Dawn" period — from 250 to 500 million years after the Big Bang.
On June 22, the Science X news portal reported the birth of a giant galaxy and a supermassive black hole. During the analysis, scientists were able to find a compact group consisting of at least six galaxies that are in the process of merging into a single system. According to the study, the space object TGSSJ1530+1049 is located at a distance of more than 12 billion light-years from Earth.
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