Astronomers have discovered a #galaxy 9.8 billion #lightyears away that creates an astounding 800 stars a year. The #MilkyWay produces two stars per year at most. - http://clapway.com/2015/09/12/gigantic-galaxy-800-new-stars-101/

Astronomers have discovered a galaxy 9.8 billion light years away that creates an astounding 800 stars a year. The Milky Way produces two stars per year at most.

“It is very exciting to have discovered such an interesting object,” said Gillian Wilson, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Riverside and a member of the research team. “Understanding its nature proved to be a real scientific challenge which required the combined efforts of an international team of astronomers and many of the world’s best telescopes to solve.”

IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY

Galaxies exist within rare regions of the universe known as galaxy clusters. The largest ones are located at the cluster’s center, and are called Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs).

The cluster named SpARCS1049+56 was first discovered using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. The Spitzer was used in combination with the Herschel Space Telescope to detect infrared light. Researchers learned that the cluster is 9.8 billion light years away, contains 27 galaxies, and has a total mass equal to 400 trillion Suns.

Scientists wanted to pin down where star formation was taking place so they brought in the Hubble Space Telescope. It showed ‘beads of string’ at the center SpARCS1049+56. This is an indication of a ‘wet merger,’ which occurs when at least one galaxy in a collision between galaxies is gas rich. The gas is then converted into stars.

Researchers believe that the BCG at the cluster’s center collided with a smaller gas-rich galaxy, igniting a monstrous production of new stars.

SHEDDING NEW LIGHT ON STAR FORMATION

“What is particularly interesting is that BCGs in clusters of galaxies closer to the Milky Way are thought to grow by so-called ‘dry mergers,’ collisions between gas-poor galaxies which do not result in the formation of new stars,” Wilson stated.

This is also one of the first to known cases of a ‘wet merger’ at the core of a galaxy cluster, and the farthest example ever observed.

Scientists will continue their research to determine if SpARCS1049+56 is a unique case, or if other galaxies are expanding in a similar way.

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Gigantic Galaxy Bursts With 800 New Stars Per Year

#ALMA has given us the ability to peer #BackInTime and learn about the #origins of the #universe. - http://clapway.com/2015/07/22/galaxies-800-million-years-after-big-bang-limned-by-alma-112/

We all know about the Big Bang, but the formation of the first galaxies has always been a mystery to scientists, until now. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope, scientists have gained the ability to peer into the depths of foggy beginnings, when hydrogen gas was just starting to collect and condense into galaxies, in the first several hundred million years following the Big Bang.

ALMA TELESCOPE IS NOT A TIME MACHINE

The thing about light is that it doesn’t travel instantaneously. Travelling at about 300 million meters per second, even the darkest patches of the sky are filled with light that’s travelled so far that it actually outlived the object it originated from. This scientific fact is why the Sun as we know it from the Earth’s surface is actually the Sun as it appeared approximately 8 minutes ago.

ALMA TELESCOPE IS A TIME MACHINE

Recently, astronomers using ALMA peered far enough back in time that they were able to view galaxies existing 800 million years after the Big Bang. Ironically, this was only made possible by the light of glowing ionized carbon, emitted from the gaseous clouds giving birth to stars.

One of these early galaxies named BDF 3299 was specifically recognized by the clear signal of glowing carbon emitting from one side of the ancient galaxy.

QUALIFYING ALMA’S FINDINGS

“This is the most distant detection ever of this kind of emission from a ‘normal galaxy (sic), seen less than one billion years after the Big Bang,” exclaimed Andrea Ferrara, co-author of these new findings. “It gives us the opportunity to watch the build-up of the first galaxies. For the first time we are seeing early galaxies not merely as tiny blobs, but as objects with internal structure!”

The reason for the above mentioned galaxies’ glowing side is that the normally brighter central clouds are being disrupted by the chaotic environment surrounding freshly born stars. Additionally, the carbon’s glow is actually tracing new, cold gas on its way into the stars from intergalactic space, and then the light is sent back out on its long journey to the ALMA’s dishes.

SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS

Ferrara explains further, “We have been trying to understand the interstellar medium and the formation of the re-ionization sources for many years…[f]inally to be able to test predictions and hypotheses on real data from ALMA is an exciting moment and opens up a new set of questions. This type of observation will clarify many of the thorny problems we have with the formation of the first stars and galaxies in the universe.”

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Galaxies 800 Million Years After Big Bang Limned By ALMA