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13-billion-year-old galaxy cluster discovered
[TRIBUNE.PK] Astronomers have discovered a 13-billion-year-old galaxy cluster that is the earliest ever observed, according to a paper released on Friday, a finding that may hold clues about how the universe developed.Such an early-stage cluster – called a protocluster — is “not easy to find”, Yuichi Harikane, a researcher at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan who led the international team, said in a press release. “A protocluster is a rare and special system with an extremely high density,” Harikane said, adding that the researchers used the wide viewing field of the Subaru telescope in Hawaii to ‘map a large area of the sky’ in their search. Distant asteroid calamity shaped life on Earth 466 million years ago The discovery of the protocluster, a collection of 12 galaxies, suggests that large cosmic structures were present in the very early stages of the universe, which scientists believe was born 13.8 billion years ago. One of the 12 galaxies is known as Himiko, a giant gas cloud found in 2009 by using the same telescope. Newfound comet likely an ‘interstellar visitor,’ scientists say “It is reasonable to find a protocluster near a massive object, such as Himiko. However, we’re surprised to see that Himiko was located… on the edge 500 million light-years away from the center,” the paper’s co-author Masami Ouchi said. Posted by: Fred 2019-09-28 |
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