Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – A telescope on Earth picks up signals from the far end of space. The signal provides a picture of the earliest history of the universe, which is estimated to be 13.8 billion years old.
The telescope is the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) in India which captures signals from very long distances of light formed by hydrogen atoms. The telescope picks up signals from the past, namely the distance between when light was emitted and detected on Earth is about 8.8 billion years.
The distance captured by this telescope broke a new record, because the previous record was 4.4 billion years. Meanwhile, Science Alert wrote down the wavelength of light from the recently discovered hydrogen atom is 21 centimeters.
“Each galaxy emits a unique type of radio signal,” said cosmologist Arnab Chakraborty of Canada’s McGill University, quoted from Science AlertSunday (9/4/2023).
“Until now we have only been able to pick up on certain signals from nearby galaxies. This limits human knowledge to only the 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 information, gravitational lensing or gravitational lensing is where light is magnified when it follows a 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 larger 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 said. “This is the result of magnifying the signal by a factor of 30, so that the telescope can pick up on it.”
The results of this study give astronomers hope for repeating similar observations in the future, namely distances and “views into the past” that were previously out of bounds.
Hydrogen atoms are formed when hot, ionized gas from a nearby galaxy “falls” toward the galaxy, where it cools. Finally, it turns into a hydrogen molecule, then it turns into a star.
The ability to see into the past could provide information to humans about how galaxies formed and the “behavior” of space at the time of their birth.
The new discovery, astronomers say, will “open up the possibility of investigating the cosmic evolution of gases with low-frequency telescopes in the near future.”
(Arrijal R/hsy)
