Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – A radio telescope has caught a signal from the edge of space. The result is a picture of the earliest moments in the universe that are 13.8 billion years old.
The signal comes from the light from a hydrogen atom from a great distance and was captured by the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) in India. The telescope picked up signals from the past, namely the distance between when light was emitted and detected on Earth, reaching 8.8 billion years.
This distance exceeds the previous record which ‘only’ reached 4.4 billion years. Meanwhile, Science Alert wrote down the wavelength of light from the recently discovered hydrogen atom is 21 centimeters.
“A galaxy emits a number of different types of radio signals,” said cosmologist Arnab Chakraborty of Canada’s McGill University, quoted from Science AlertFriday (20/1/2023).
“Until now it has only been able to pick up specific signals from nearby galaxies, which limits what is known about galaxies closest to Earth.”
The research team used a gravitational lens to detect the signal. It turns out that it comes from a star-forming galaxy named SDSSJ0826+5630.
For your information, gravitational lensing or a gravitational lens is where light is magnified as it travels through curved space. The space surrounding the large object is between the telescope and the original source.
Astrophysicist Nirupam Roy explains that in some cases, the signal can be deflected due to an even bigger object. One example is another galaxy.
“In this particular case, the signal was deflected by the presence of another massive object, another galaxy, between the target and the observer,” he explained.
