The astrophysicists at the California Institute of Technology discovered the oldest and farthest galaxies in the universe. The galaxy is 13.2 billion years old, which was born just 600 million years after the Big Bang.
The discovery of the oldest galaxies originated from the step of Adi Zitrin and Richard Ellis who investigating data from the Hubble and Spitzer spacecraft mission earlier this year. They reveal a candidate galaxy.
The discovery of the galaxy candidates were then confirmed by the Multi-Object Spectrometer for the Infrared Exploration (MOSFIRE), the instrument in the Keck Observatory, Hawaii.
Confirmation of the spectrometer analysis that is needed to reveal the redshift, the scale is often used to indicate the distance and the age of the galaxy. Each galaxy in the universe emit the light. The further away, the light waves change when observed with the spectrometer, which is becoming increasingly red. That is called redshift.
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| Researchers from the California Institute of Technology believe that the discovery of the EGS8p7 galaxy, which is considered to be the oldest and most distant galaxy found, could potentially alter the established timeline of the reionization of the universe that many scientists follow. (Picture from: http://bit.ly/1ObNLtU) |
EGS8p7 galaxy has a redshift value of 8.68, higher than the previous oldest galaxies record holder who has a redshift value of 7.73.
"The surprise of this discovery is that we managed to detect the Lyman-alpha line of the galaxy with a redshift of 8.68, indicating when the universe was filled with clouds of hydrogen," said Ellis. Lyman-alpha line is simply the footsteps of star formation in a galaxy. The existence and activities of galaxies can be detected from it.
Detection of traces of it is special because when you see the process of physical and chemical changes that occur in the universe, the trail was supposed to have been damaged or lost.
Soon after forming, the universe consists of charged particles. After about 380,000 years, the universe began to cool and rich hydrogen cloud.
EGS8p7 formed when the universe is rich in hydrogen clouds. "We suspect that most of the radiation (from EGS8p7) is absorbed by clouds of hydrogen. In fact, we still detect it now," said Zitrin.
According to `Sirio Belli, a student who involved in the research said that the anomalies that may occur because of EGS8p7 so bright. "The galaxy we observed, EGS8p7 is very bright and may have many unusual hot stars," he said as quoted from Gizmodo on Sunday, September 6, 2015. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | GIZMODO]
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