India’s AstroSat satellite detects UV light from galaxy 9 billion light-years away



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Indian satellite detects UV light from galaxy 9 billion light-years away

A global team led by scientists from IUCAA has achieved the major breakthrough. (Representative)

Pune:

AstroSat, India’s first multi-wavelength satellite, detected extreme ultraviolet (UV) light from a galaxy 9.3 billion light-years from Earth, the Interuniversity Center for Astronomy said on Monday. and astrophysics (IUCAA).

A statement from the Pune-based Interuniversity Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics says a global team led by scientists from IUCAA has achieved the major breakthrough.

India’s first multi-wavelength satellite, which has five unique x-ray and ultraviolet telescopes working in tandem, AstroSat, detected ultraviolet light from a galaxy, called AUDFs01, 9.3 billion years ago -light of the Earth, ”he said.

The discovery was made by an international team of astronomers led by Dr. Kanak Saha, associate professor of astronomy at IUCAA, and published Aug. 24 by “Nature Astronomy,” the statement said.

This team included scientists from India, France, Switzerland, the United States, Japan and the Netherlands. Dr Saha and his team observed the galaxy, located in the Hubble Extreme Deep field, via AstroSat.

These sightings lasted more than 28 hours in October 2016, the statement said.

But it has taken nearly two years since then to carefully analyze the data to make sure the show is indeed coming from the galaxy. Since UV radiation is absorbed by Earth’s atmosphere, it must be observed from space, he said.

Previously, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (HST), a telescope much larger than the UVIT (UV Imaging Telescope), did not detect any UV emissions (with energy greater than 13.6 eV) of this galaxy because it is too weak, he said.

AstroSat / UVIT was able to achieve this unique feat because the background noise in the UVIT detector is much lower than that of the HST, ”said the statement citing Dr Saha.

Dr Saha said they knew it would be an uphill task to convince the international community that UVIT recorded extreme UV emissions from this galaxy while the more powerful HST did not.

Dr Somak Raychaudhury, Director of IUCAA, said: “This is a very important clue as to how the dark ages of the universe ended and that there was light in the universe. We need to know when it started, but it was very difficult to find. The first sources of light. I am very proud that my colleagues made such an important discovery. “

(Except for the title, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)

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