Scientists from the US Space Agency “NASA” who participated in the mission of the robotic probe “New Horizons” recently analyzed images taken by the probe in deep regions of the universe indicating that the universe is full of unknown sources of light, according to A report by the American Public Broadcasting Corporation “NPR” website.
And launched “New Horizons” first to study the icy dwarf planet “Pluto” and what is known as the “Kuiper belt.”
After overtaking the planet, in 2015, the probe continued to advance through the universe and is now more than 6.5 billion kilometers from Earth.
This far distance was an opportunity for scientists to explore the universe away from the main sources of light pollution that make it difficult to detect any small light signal from the universe itself.
And our solar system, for example, is filled with dust particles that are illuminated by the sun, which creates a glow in the sky, unlike more distant places in the universe.
Todd Lauer, an astronomer at the National Optical Astronomical Observatory in Arizona, who participated in the study, said that the images captured by the telescope were “what we would simply call an empty sky. There’s a scattering of faint stars, faint galaxies, but they look random.”
To avoid these light sources, the scientists manipulated the images to remove all known sources of visible light from them.
Even though light from stars, diffuse light from the Milky Way, and any stray light were removed, they could still see light from outside our galaxy.
And the scientists went even further, removing all the light that could have come from the galaxies we know, and yet there was still a lot of unknown light.
The observed amount of light was equal to all of the light from galaxies, according to Mark Postman, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland.
Scientists do not know the reason for this light, and some are likely to be unknown galaxies, or other sources, but the results of this study will open a dialogue between scientists, according to the report.
–
–
