An international squad of astronomer has observed the faintest physical object at the edge of the visible cosmos . The object is one of the first galaxies ever ; when the brightness level detected was emitted , it was less than 17 million days honest-to-goodness .
This impressive feat was possible thanks to the tycoon of the Keck Observatory on top of Mauna Kea in Hawaii , as well as to the serendipitous place of this object in the sky . The galax looks like lay flop behind the large galaxy clustering MACS J2129.4 - 0741 , whose acute gravitational orbit acted like a lens and magnified the light of this distant target .
The gravitational lense produced three images of the same Galax urceolata . By pairing them with each other , the researchers were able to notice that it was actually all from the same object . The discovery is reported in theAstrophysical Journal Letters .
“ If the sparkle from this coltsfoot was not magnified by factors of 11 , five and two , we would not have been able to see it , ” Kuang - Han Huang , the lead author of the paper , articulate in astatement .
simulacrum of the clustering taken by Hubble , with the three spectrum of the lightheaded lensed images . They have peaks at the same wavelength , hence showing that they go to the same source . Credit : Bradac / Hst / W. M. Keck Observatory
Small faint galaxies are thought to be the driver ofreionization , an early phase of the existence when atomic number 1 gas formed and the universe post - giving Bang became ionise ( lost its electrons ) , due to the light of the first wiz .
The galaxy has a mass adequate to 17 million Suns , which is about 0.01 percent of the mass of the Milky Way . Its diminutive size and its great distance make it a likely member of the population of faint galaxies that drove the era of reionization .
“ It ’s a clue in answering one of the fundamental questions uranology is trying to understand : What is causing the atomic number 1 flatulency at the very beginning of the Universe to go from neutral to ionized about 13 billion years ago , ” add Marc Kassis , a stave astronomer at the Keck Observatory , who helped the discovery squad . “ That ’s when stars turn on and matter became more complex . ”
Next - generation observation tower like the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to identify more of these objects , probing the distant universe and providing answers to its mysteries .
