Early Universe Galaxy Observed in Formation Phase for First Time

Consisting of 66 12-meter (39 ft.), and 7-meter (23 ft.) diameter radio telescopes observing at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths, ALMA is expected to provide insight on star birth during the early universe and detailed imaging of local star and planet formation.

However, scientists noticed that the glow of ionized carbon – seen in the image as a red cloud – was not coming from the center of the galaxy, but from one side.

This finding means that scientists are watching galaxies in some of their earliest stages of development, as when time started, the space was likely filled with such gas clouds, from which stars began to take shape, clearing up the gas clouds through a process called reionization.

Astronomers at ALMA directed the gaze of the powerful instrument past known galaxies, quasars and other more traditional, celestial targets.

As per Andrea Ferrara, a co-author for this study, this was the most distant detection of this type of emission ever from normal galaxies seen below 1 billion years post the Big Bang. His team at ESO was dumbfounded to find that the faint glows they originally observed will become either a new star or a new galaxy.

In a landmark discovery, researchers in Europe have spotted star-forming gas clouds billions of light years away, which are probably the building blocks of some of the first galaxies in the universe.

In the post-haste days after the Big Bang, hydrogen gas was in plentiful supply.

The researchers think that the off-center location of the glow is because of disruption by the radiation from newly formed stars and the effects of supernova explosions. Although this is one of the deepest ALMA observations so far it is still far from achieving its ultimate capabilities. “In future ALMA will image the fine structure of primordial galaxies and trace in detail the build-up of the very first galaxies”, lead astronomer Roberto Maiolino said.

For the scientific community, this represents a huge deal as they have always been trying pretty hard to comprehend this interstellar medium and the manner in which galaxies and stars were formed. “Finally 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”, Ferrara said.

In this search, ALMA obtained a thin but clear signal of glowing carbon from a galaxy named BDF3299 that could be a typical example of galaxies responsible for reionization of the universe. Seeing the crooked galaxy’s formation offers a chance to refine models of the very early universe.