Young galaxy puts a spin on old models
Radio telescope combines with cosmic magnifying glass to study the early universe.
The galaxy cluster RXCJ0600-2007 taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, combined with gravitational lensing images of the distant galaxy RXCJ0600-z6, 12.4 billion light-years away, observed by ALMA (shown in red). Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Fujimoto et al., NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope
From an arid and isolated plateau in the Atacama Desert, a radio telescope has spied a baby galaxy in the infant universe – and surprisingly, it’s rotating.
Astronomers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile to peer back to a time when the universe was just seven percent of its current age, aiming to explore the nature of the first generation of galaxies.