Question: Recently Astronomers have discovered an earliest ever observed galaxy cluster of forming galaxies located at the distance of-
(a) 11 billion light-years
(b) 12 billion light-years
(c) 13 billion light-years
(d) 8 million light-years
Answer: (c)
Related facts:
- Astronomers have discovered an earliest ever observed galaxy cluster of forming galaxies (cluster of protogalaxies).
- Astronomers say that this elementary galaxy cluster is located at the distance of 13 billion light years from us meaning it is observed as it looked 13 billion years ago.
- This discovery has been made by an international team of astronomers, led by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and including researchers from Imperial College London. The team was led by Yuichi Harikane.
- A galaxy protocluster is a rare and special system with an extremely high density and this one is a collection of 12 galaxies.
- The researchers used the wide viewing field of the Subaru telescope in Hawaii to map a large area of the sky in their search.
- The Subaru telescope had previously spotted a giant gaseous nebula called Himiko in the region.
- This time closer inspection of this same region, revealed Himiko is a massive galaxy, accompanied by 11 other complete galaxies.
- This discovery suggests that large cosmic structures were present in the very early stages of the universe.
- It should be known that scientists believe that universe was born 13.8 billion years ago. The study of the protocluster, named z66OD, is published on 27th September, 2019, in The Astrophysical Journal.
Links:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/192972/earliest-cluster-forming-galaxies-discovered-13/
http://www.astronomy.com/news/2019/09/the-oldest-discovered-cluster-of-galaxies-is-revealing-the-early-universe