Astronomers have been trying to figure out a long-standing mystery regarding star formation in faraway galaxies. SciTechDaily reports that they have been in pursuit of knowing more about this by picking up radio signals from these systems. However, with greater distance, the signals end up getting weaker.
Distant Radio Signals Successfully Caught
Now, according to McGill University, specialists from Montreal as well as India were able to successfully catch a radio signal from the farthest galaxy to date. The signal was picked up at a particular wavelength, recognized as the 21 cm line. This, then, enables astronomers to delve through the universe's mysteries.
With India's Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope playing a huge role, this is the first instance where a specific radio signal type was able to be picked up from a remarkable distance.
The study was included in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Postdoctoral researcher Arnab Chakraborty from McGill University shares how galaxies emit various types of radio signals. However, until now, it was only possible to grasp such signals from proximate galaxies. This served as a huge limitation, as knowledge only covered those systems that were situated near earth.
However, thanks to gravitational lensing, it is possible to grasp faint signals from great distances. Chakraborty notes how this will help the researchers know more about the galaxy composition of those systems far from earth.
Mysteries of the Early Universe
It is the first time that researchers were able to pick up signals from a far star-forming galaxy called SDSSJ0826+5630. They were also able to gauge the composition of the gas.
The specialists were able to see that the gas content's atomic mass was also double the mass of visible stars.
SciTechDaily notes how the universe expelled this signal when it was just around 4.9 billion years old. This allowed the specialists to look into the mysteries of the early universe. Chakraborty notes how such an instance equates to looking back over 8.8 billion years.
Nirupan Roy, study co-author and associate professor from the Indian Institute of Science's Department of Physics, notes how gravitational lensing enhances the signal from the far object to enable researchers to dig deeper into the early universe. In the specific case at hand, the radio signal is bent because of another huge galaxy situated between the observer and its target. As a result, the signal gets magnified by a factor of 30, which enables the telescope to detect it.
The specialists note that such results show how it is possible to look into distant galaxies through gravitational lensing. This also births various fresh opportunities to dig into how stars and galaxies evolved through the use of radio telescopes, which are low in frequency.
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