Scientists discover ancient radio signals from distant galaxy cluster
While studying the distant galaxy cluster known as SpARCS1049, astronomers detected faint mysterious radio waves, according to a study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and available on the pre-print server Xrxiv.
The discovered radio waves, which took 10 billion years to reach Earth, originated from a vast region of space filled with high-energy particles and magnetic fields.
These vast clouds of high-energy particles are known as a mini-halo. A mini-halo has never been detected this deep into space before, according to the study.
Astronomers Make Groundbreaking Discovery About Largest Comet Ever Observed Flying Through Deep Space
Mini-halos are described in the study as faint groups of charged particles. These groups are known to emit both radio and X-ray waves. Mini-halos are typically found in clusters between galaxies.
Read On The Fox News App
Roland Timmerman of the Institute for Computational Cosmology of Durham University and co-author of the study said in a statement in Phys.org how these particles are important for the creation of our universe.
"It's astonishing to find such a strong radio signal at this distance," Timmerman said. "It means these energetic particles and the processes creating them have been shaping galaxy clusters for nearly the entire history of the universe."
Scientists Detect Mysterious Radio Waves Coming From Beneath Antarctica's Ice
The astronomers analyzed data from the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope. The LOFAR is made up of 100,000 small antennas across eight European countries, according to the study.
The team of astronomers believes there are two causes for the makeup of these mini-halos.
According to the study, the first explanation is supermassive black holes found at the heart of galaxies. These black holes can release high-energy particles into space.
The astronomers are perplexed as to how these particles would escape such a powerful black hole to create these clusters.
The second explanation, according to the study, is cosmic particle collisions.
These cosmic particle collisions occur when charged particles filled with hot plasma collide at near-light speeds. These collisions smash apart, allowing the high-energy particles to be observed from Earth.
According to the study, astronomers now believe that this discovery suggests that either black holes or particle collisions have been energizing galaxies earlier than previously believed.
New telescopes being developed like the Square Kilometer Array will eventually let astronomers detect even more faint signals.
Julie Hlavacek-Larrondo from the University of Montreal and co-lead author of the study said in a statement she believes this is just the beginning to the wonders of space.
"We are just scratching the surface of how energetic the early universe really was," Hlavacek-Larrondo said in the statement. "This discovery gives us a new window into how galaxy clusters grow and evolve, driven by both black holes and high-energy particle physics."Original article source: Scientists discover ancient radio signals from distant galaxy cluster
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
E&E News
an hour ago
- E&E News
Satellite tracking oil and gas emissions goes dark
An $88 million methane-tracking satellite that attracted funding from the likes of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the government of New Zealand is no longer operating. Ground crews lost contact June 20 with MethaneSAT, which was launched in March 2024, the Environmental Defense Fund announced Tuesday. Officials said they recently learned that the satellite lost power and was 'likely not recoverable.' EDF said MethaneSAT was the first satellite developed by an environmental nonprofit, and the group sought to publicly distribute the methane data collected by the project. EDF began publishing some of that data last year and had partnered with Google to create a massive, global map of methane emissions from oil and gas sites. Advertisement 'While this is difficult news, it is not the end of the overall MethaneSAT effort, or of our work to slash methane emissions,' EDF officials wrote in a statement.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Satellite backed by Google, Bezos and Musk to track methane is lost in space
An $88mn satellite backed by Google, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk's SpaceX has been lost in space, in a blow to global efforts to detect the Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
The ‘Great Dying' wiped out 90% of life, then came 5 million years of lethal heat. New fossils explain why
Around 252 million years ago, life on Earth suffered its most catastrophic blow to date: a mass extinction event known as the 'Great Dying' that wiped out around 90% of life. What followed has long puzzled scientists. The planet became lethally hot and remained so for 5 million years. A team of international researchers say they have now figured out why using a vast trove of fossils — and it all revolves around tropical forests. Their findings, published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications, may help solve a mystery, but they also spell out a dire warning for the future as humans continue to heat up the planet by burning fossil fuels. The Great Dying was the worst of the five mass extinction events that have punctuated Earth's history, and it marked the end of the Permian geological period. It has been attributed to a period of volcanic activity in a region known as the Siberian Traps, which released huge amounts of carbon and other planet-heating gases into the atmosphere, causing intense global warming. Enormous numbers of marine and land-based plants and animals died, ecosystems collapsed and oceans acidified. What has been less clear, however, is why it got so hot and why 'super greenhouse' conditions persisted for so long, even after volcanic activity ceased. 'The level of warming is far beyond any other event,' said Zhen Xu, a study author and a research fellow at the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds. Some theories revolve around the ocean and the idea that extreme heat wiped out carbon-absorbing plankton, or changed the ocean's chemical composition to make it less effective at storing carbon. But scientists from the University of Leeds in England and the China University of Geosciences thought the answer may lie in a climate tipping point: the collapse of tropical forests. The Great Dying extinction event is unique 'because it's the only one in which the plants all die off,' said Benjamin Mills, a study author and a professor of Earth system evolution at the University of Leeds. To test the theory, they used an archive of fossil data in China that has been put together over decades by three generations of Chinese geologists. They analyzed the fossils and rock formations to get clues about climate conditions in the past, allowing them to reconstruct maps of plants and trees living on each part of the planet before, during and after the extinction event. 'Nobody's ever made maps like these before,' Mills told CNN. The results confirmed their hypothesis, showing that the loss of vegetation during the mass extinction event significantly reduced the planet's ability to store carbon, meaning very high levels remained in the atmosphere. Forests are a vital climate buffer as they suck up and store planet-heating carbon. They also play a crucial role in 'silicate weathering,' a chemical process involving rocks and rainwater — a key way of removing carbon from the atmosphere. Tree and plant roots help this process by breaking up rock and allowing fresh water and air to reach it. Once the forests die, 'you're changing the carbon cycle,' Mills said, referring to the way carbon moves around the Earth, between the atmosphere, land, oceans and living organisms. Michael Benton, a professor of paleontology at the University of Bristol, who was not involved in the study, said the research shows 'the absence of forests really impacts the regular oxygen-carbon cycles and suppresses carbon burial and so high levels of CO2 remain in the atmosphere over prolonged periods,' he told CNN. It highlights 'a threshold effect,' he added, where the loss of forests becomes 'irreversible on ecological time scales.' Global politics currently revolve around the idea that if carbon dioxide levels can be controlled, damage can be reversed. 'But at the threshold, it then becomes hard for life to recover,' Benton said. This is a key takeaway from the study, Mills said. It shows what might happen if rapid global warming causes the planet's rainforests to collapse in the future — a tipping point scientists are very concerned about. Even if humans stop pumping out planet-heating pollution altogether, the Earth may not cool. In fact, warming could accelerate, he said. There is a sliver of hope: The rainforests that currently carpet the tropics may be more resilient to high temperatures than those that existed before the Great Dying. This is the question the scientists are tackling next. This study is still a warning, Mills said. 'There is a tipping point there. If you warm tropical forests too much, then we have a very good record of what happens. And it's extremely bad.'
