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IMAGE: An artist s conception of the most-distant known astrophysical object GN-z11, a galaxy 13.4 billion light-years from Earth depicted with a gamma-ray burst like the one caught by the astronomers that allowed them. view more
Credit: Illustration is courtesy of Jingchuan Yu.
Pasadena, CA New work from an international team of astronomers including Carnegie s Gregory Walth improves our understanding of the most-distant known astrophysical object GN-z11, a galaxy 13.4 billion light-years from Earth.
Formed 400 million years after the Big Bang, GN-z11 was previously determined by space telescope data to be the most-distant object yet discovered. In two newly published
Nature Astronomy papers, a team led by Linhua Jiang at the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University took near-infrared spectra using ground-based telescopes that confirmed the galaxy s distance. They also caught an ultraviolet flash associated with a gamma-ray bur
The farthest galaxy in the universe
A team of astronomers used the Keck I telescope to measure the distance to an ancient galaxy. They deduced the target galaxy GN-z11 is not only the oldest galaxy but also the most distant. It s so distant it defines the very boundary of the observable universe itself. The team hopes this study can shed light on a period of cosmological history when the universe was only a few hundred million years old.
We ve all asked ourselves the big questions at times: How big is the universe? or How and when did galaxies form? Astronomers take these questions very seriously, and use fantastic tools that push the boundaries of technology to try and answer them. Professor Nobunari Kashikawa from the Department of Astronomy at the University of Tokyo is driven by his curiosity about galaxies. In particular, he sought the most distant one we can observe in order to find out how and when it came to be.
The farthest galaxy in the universe: Chemical signatures give away the distance
A team of astronomers used the Keck I telescope to measure the distance to an ancient galaxy. They deduced the target galaxy GN-z11 is not only the oldest galaxy but also the most distant. It’s so distant it defines the very boundary of the observable universe itself. The team hopes this study can shed light on a period of cosmological history when the universe was only a few hundred million years old.
We’ve all asked ourselves the big questions at times: “How big is the universe?” or “How and when did galaxies form?” Astronomers take these questions very seriously, and use fantastic tools that push the boundaries of technology to try and answer them. Professor Nobunari Kashikawa from the Department of Astronomy at the University of Tokyo is driven by his curiosity about galaxies. In particular, he sought the most distant one we can observe in order to find out how and when it came to be.