Astronomers discover the brightest of the first galaxies of all time

The primitive universe is a mystery. It is literally surrounded by a veil that obscures its distant and early light. But a new light through this void could give us a glimpse of this mysterious era.

Two articles published in the Astrophysical Journal (first article, second article) detail the discovery of a quasar named PSO J352. 4034-15,3373, or P352-15 for short. Quasars are the active centers of large galaxies where supermassive black holes project gas jets. The image is weak, but shows three distinct regions extending over 5000 light-years.

Our universe is 13.8 billion years old; this quasar is 13 billion years old. In the meantime, our universe was filled with neutral hydrogen – a positively charged proton coupled with a negatively charged electron – that appeared as a cloud spanning the entire universe as it developed. quickly. It made it difficult to see very far through the universe. The first stars eventually combined in the first galaxies. These galaxies were typically a bit stranger and smaller than our modern galaxies.

But P352-15, like our modern galaxies, has a supermassive black hole in the center, trapping gas. These are the first supermassive black holes that "triggered" neutral hydrogen and reionized it, giving us the clear skies we see today in an era known as the "dead". time of reionization.

Researchers at the National Astronomical Radio Observatory (NRAO), using data from the Very Large Array in New Mexico, have competing ideas about why their image of P352-15 has three components distinct. The first component is the current quasar, while the other two are the massive streams that come out of an active galactic center. In this case, it is a unilateral throw. In the other explanation, the central object is the quasar, and the outliers are parts of a two-sided jet

"This quasar may be the farthest object in which one could measure the speed of such a jet, "NRAO astronomer Emmanuel Momjian said in a press release

P352-15 is not the first galaxy we have ever view; this record goes to GN-z11, which is 13.4 billion light-years away. A light year corresponds to how old the light we see is; the sun itself is eight minutes from the light, which means that when we do not look into the sky, we see an eight-minute light; the nearest star, Proxima Centauri actually shows itself in the sky as it did 4.2 years ago, etc. Thus, GN-z11 has 13.4 billion years, a good 400 million years older than P352-15. is the brightest, making it one of the best places to study the primitive universe. The researchers believe that this comes from the end of the Reionization Era, helping to build a more consistent picture of how early galaxies altered the universe forever – and helped us to actually see the stars in the night sky

article published on Discovermagazine.com