Researchers use galaxy as a 'cosmic telescope' to study heart of the young universe

Researchers have been given the ability to peer into the heart of the young universe thanks to a new instrument and a powerful telescope.

The universe was filled with large clouds of neutral diffuse gas after the big bang. The gasses within slowly coalesce to fuel the creation of stars and galaxies. They can still be observed, but it is not easy.

DLAs are a key to understanding how galaxies form in the universe, but they are typically difficult to observe since the clouds are too diffuse and don't emit any light of their own.

Currently, astrophysicists use quasars that emit light to detect the clouds. The light from the quasars only acts as small skewers through a massive cloud, making it difficult to measure their total size and mass.

Bordoloi and John O'Meara were able to find a way around the problem by using a telescope.

There is a massive structure in front of the galaxy that bends the light coming from it as it travels toward us. We end up looking at an extended version of the object because it gives us better visualization.

It is easy to take spectrum readings on different parts of the object because the background is extended across the sky and bright. You can probe very small scales with lensing. For example, if the object is one light year across, we can study small bits in very high fidelity.

astrophysicists can see elements in deep space that are not visible to the naked eye, such as diffuse gaseous DLAs and the potential galaxies within them. The process of gathering the readings is lengthy. The team solved the issue by using the Cosmic Web imager.

The researchers were able to get a spectrum at every single point on the part of the sky they weretargeting. The team was able to map out the diffuse DLA gas in the sky at high fidelity thanks to this innovation. The researchers were able to determine the size of the two DLAs, as well as the host galaxies, using this method.

I've waited most of my career for this combination: a telescope and instrument powerful enough, and nature giving us a bit of lucky alignments to study not one but two DLAs in a rich new way.

By the way, the DLAs are huge. They are more than two thirds the size of the Milky Way. 13 billion years ago, a typical galaxy would have a diameter of less than 5 kiloparsecs. It would take light about 56,723 years to travel across each of the DLA.

The most amazing thing about the DLAs we observed is that they are not unique, they seem to have similarities in structure, host galaxies were detected in both, and their mass indicates that they have enough fuel for the next generation.

The work is in a journal.

More information: Rongmon Bordoloi, Resolving the HI in Damped Lyman-α systems that power star-formation, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04616-1. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04616-1 Journal information: Nature Citation: Researchers use galaxy as a 'cosmic telescope' to study heart of the young universe (2022, May 18) retrieved 18 May 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-05-galaxy-cosmic-telescope-heart-young.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.