Galaxies

Artist's concept of primordial spiral galaxy with quasar in the background (Image A. Angelich (NRAO/AUI/NSF))

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An article published in the journal “Science” describes a research about two very young galaxies that probably look very wimilar to the Milky Way 12 billion years ago. Called ALMA J081740.86+135138.2 and ALMA J120110.26+211756.2, they were observed by a team of astronomers using the ALMA radio telescope as a follow-up of previous research conducted using the light from a quasar behind the two galaxies. The new research showed that the two galaxies are surrounded by a halo of gas and that their star formation rate is rather high.

A HSC-SSP image of a galaxy cluster (Image NAOJ/HSC Project)

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At the end of February the first data from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP) were released to the public. It’s a kind of cosmic census created using a large digital camera installed on the Subaru Telescope. The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) developed a dedicated database and interface to use the wealth of data collected. One hope is to be closer to understand the fate of the universe.

Artistic concept of the galaxy A2744_YD4 (Image ESO/M. Kornmesser)

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An article to be published in the journal “The Astrophysical Journal Letters” describes a research about the galaxy A2744_YD4, the most distant observed with the ALMA radio telescope. A team of astronomers led by Nicolas Laporte of University College London also used the X-shooter instrument on ESO’s VLT to confirm that we’re seeing A2744_YD4 as it was about six hundred million years after the Big Bang. The most interesting thing is the dust detection indicating that there were already several supernovae.

Artist's concept of a supermassive black hole with ultrafast winds (Image ESA)

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An article published in the journal “Nature” describes the most detailed observations of incredibly fast winds that travel at speeds of up to 71,000 km/s, nearly a quarter of the speed of light, near a supermassive black hole. A team of researchers used NASA’s NuSTAR and ESA’s XMM-Newton space telescopes to observe this phenomenon at the center of the galaxy IRAS 13224-3809 recording very quick temperature changes.

RX J1347.5-1145 galaxy cluster (Image ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/T. Kitayama (Toho University, Japan)/ESA/Hubble & NASA)

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The ALMA radio telescope was used for the first time to measure the thermal Sunyaev-Zel’dovich Effect aiming it at the RX J1347.5-1145 galaxy cluster, located about 5 billion light years from Earth. This effect is due to the photons from the cosmic microwave background radiation that interact with high-energy electrons because of their temperature. Those measurements are useful to obtain information on the location and distribution of dense galactic clusters such as the one studied in this case.