Ancient Galaxies

Astronomers and cosmologists from The Open University in Milton Keynes, England managed to detect the primordial galaxy. He did it by using the effects caused by the distortion of space and time in the great distance between the earth and the galaxy.

According to astronomers, Mattia Negrello, these galaxies previously hidden behind dust space. The discovery of very distant galaxies that have the potential to reveal how the process of galaxy formation and the early universe.

He explained that the galaxy distance is generally difficult to see. But the dim light of galaxies shrouded in dust outer space even more difficult to detect, even though using the largest telescopes available today. However, the stronom managed to boost their effectiveness by relying on the lens telescopes and galaxies that exist among astronomers with the object they want to see.

Gravitational attraction from objects that are in the middle between the researcher and the object was observed to interfere with space and time, this effect is able to bend light. Effect called 'gravitational lensing' is what can improve the ability of vision to a very distant galaxy, or at least allow researchers to capture a few pictures around the galaxy.

Generally, find the gravitational lense is also very time consuming. Currently, using data from the Herschel space telescope, the galaxy can be detected easily using a sub-millimeter wave light winded when observing the sky with a fairly large in size.

The object is viewed from the sub-millimeter range is generally thought to be a dusty galaxy, located at long distances and have a strong blast of star formation. This intense Aktivtas produce dust that obscure them. In particular sky position, researchers discovered five new gravitational lenses, dusty galaxies that form stars.

"I estimate that about four to six pieces of galaxies detected in the data we collected last year," said Mattia Negrello, as quoted from Space, 9 November 2010.

"These data represent about 3 percent of the total area to be mapped by Herchel in the H-ATLAS (Herschel Astrophysical terahertz Large Area Survey)." The word Negrello. "It is very encouraging as they become known that there are actually 5 pieces," he said.

The method used this time researchers simpler than previous techniques. They looked at the sky to search for sub-millimeter-sized radiation, to identify the brightest objects and remove some contaminants such as other galaxies that are nearby.

All that remains later identified as galaxies that form stars. "This is the easiest way to find the appearance of gravitational lensing," says Negrello.

According Negrello, five pieces of galaxies discovered likened only a tip of the iceberg. "We hope to find more than 100 H-ATLAS again in full later on," he said.

By capturing details that amplified by gravitational lensing on the number of galaxies, researchers hope to better understand how they formed and evolved.