MadiunNetwork.com- A Galaxy that has just emerged from hiding may be one of the youngest ever discovered, offering a potential portal to the secrets of the early universe.
Aptly named “Peekaboo”, the Galaxy has moved from behind a bright (from our perspective) star in just the last 50 to 100 years.
However, it’s not just the appearance of a relatively new galaxy that has astronomers excited.
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In results published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, scientists report that Peekaboo appears to have a significant shortage of old stars.
New measurements suggest the dwarf galaxy may have formed billions of years after the big bang—much slower than other galaxies close to us.
“Almost every galaxy in the nearby universe has very, very old stars that originated shortly after the big bang,” said Gagandeep Anand, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute and one of the authors of the new study.
As stars age, they create heavier elements, including metals.
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Peekaboo is one of only three relatively nearby galaxies that astronomers find extremely metal-poor—and at 22 million light-years away, it’s the closest, making it suitable for further study.
Astronomers first noticed clues about the Peekaboo galaxy in 2001 during a full-sky survey, but the glare of closer stars largely obscured it from additional scrutiny.
High-quality images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2020 confirmed the partially hidden object to be a dwarf galaxy, and subsequent optical observations revealed a lack of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium—suggesting that Peekaboo’s conditions could mimic those of early galaxies. universe.
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Reported MadiunNetwork.com from scientificamerican.com, until now researchers didn’t know if Peekaboo’s metal-poor state definitively indicated its age.
