Researchers say they have captured radio signals from the most distant galaxy ever. Signals with specific wavelengths, called 21 cm lines, help answer questions about the early universe. According to the news release It was published last week by McGill University.
The radio signal captured by India’s Giant Metley Wave Radio Telescope was in a galaxy known as SDSSJ0826+5630.
Researcher at McGill University and the Indian Institute of Science studied the signal It turns out that the universe was ejected when it was 4.9 billion years old. “This equates to going back in time to him 8.8 billion years,” said Arnab Chakraborty, a postdoctoral researcher at McGill.
The telescope was able to pick up the distant signal because it was bent by another galaxy between the signal and the telescope, researchers say. “This effectively magnifies the signal by a factor of 30, allowing telescopes to pick it up,” said study co-author Nirupam Roy, an associate professor at the Indian Institute of Science. said.
National Center for Radio Astrophysics
This bending of the signal is called gravitational lensing, and it could help researchers observe the cosmic evolution of distant galaxies and stars.
“Galaxies emit many different kinds of radio signals. Until now, we could only pick up this particular signal from nearby galaxies, and our knowledge was limited to galaxies closer to Earth. said Chakraborty. “But thanks to a naturally occurring phenomenon called gravitational lensing, we can capture faint signals from record-breaking distances, which can help us understand the composition of galaxies far from Earth. .”
The researchers were able to determine that the atomic mass of hydrogen gas in SDSSJ0826+5630 is almost twice the mass of the star we see. Hydrogen gas “provides the basic fuel for star formation in galaxies,” the researchers wrote in the study. “Knowledge of this cosmic evolution of neutral gases is needed to understand the evolution of galaxies over cosmic time.”
The study shows that scientists may soon be able to investigate the cosmic evolution of neutral gases using low-frequency radio telescopes.
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