Seismic waves have been detected in a new snapshot of an ancient, distant galaxy. The discovery could help scientists understand how our Milky Way was born and evolved.
As the ScienceDaily wrote, the more than 12 billion-year-old BRI 1335-0417 is the oldest and most distant known spiral galaxy in our universe.
Astronomers are looking for the answer to how spiral galaxies form in ancient images
The lead author of the research, Dr. Takafumi Tsukui, said that the state-of-the-art telescope called ALMA allowed them to examine this ancient galaxy in much more detail.
“We were particularly interested in how the gas moves in and out of the galaxy,” Dr Tsukui said. “Gas is a key ingredient in star formation and can give us important clues about how a galaxy actually fuels star formation.”
This time, the researchers not only managed to capture the motion of the gas around BRI 1335-0417, but also discovered the formation of a seismic wave – a first for such an early-born galaxy. The disk of the galaxy, a flattened mass of spinning stars, gas and dust, moves like ripples on a pond after a stone is thrown in.
According to Dr. Tsukui, the disk’s vertical movement is due to an external source. Either new gas flowing into the galaxy, or contact with other smaller galaxies. What is common, however, is that in both cases it would bombard the galaxy with some kind of “fuel”, thereby promoting the formation of stars.
Galactic bands accelerate the flow
The study also revealed a band-like structure in the disk. Galactic bars can interrupt the flow of gas and transport it towards the center of the galaxy. The band discovered in BRI 1335-0417 is the most distant known structure of its kind. Together, these results show the dynamic growth of a young galaxy.
Because BRI 1335-0417 is so far away, its light takes longer to reach Earth. Therefore, the images seen with a telescope today come from the early era of the galaxy, we can observe the images created by billions of years of light. When the light left the galaxy in the direction of today’s Milky Way, the universe was only ten times as old as it is now.
“Early galaxies were found to form stars much faster than today’s galaxies. This is also true for BRI 1335-0417, which, despite having a similar mass to our Milky Way, is forming stars a few hundred times faster,” said co-author Associate Professor Emily Wisnioski.
The researchers wanted to understand how the gas supply could keep up with such a rapid rate of star formation. Spiral structures are rare in the early Universe, and exactly how they form is unknown. This study also provides crucial information about the most likely scenarios, which could revolutionize this branch of astronomy in the future.
Worth reading:
2023-12-28 06:04:28
#Astronomers #detected #seismic #waves #ancient #galaxy
