Latest news with #LOwFrequencyARray
Yahoo
a day ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Astonishing 'halo' of high-energy particles around giant galaxy cluster is a glimpse into the early universe
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A vast cloud of energetic particles surrounding a cluster of galaxies that existed around four billion years after the Big Bang could help scientists discover how the early universe took shape. But was the halo of the massive cluster of galaxies — called SpARCS104922.6+564032.5, and located 9.9 billion light-years from Earth— built by erupting supermassive black holes or a cosmic particle accelerator? This envelope of radio-emitting particles — a so-called "radio mini-halo," though it isn't really mini at all — is the most distant example of such a structure ever detected. Its distance is double that of the next farthest radio mini-halo, with its radio signal having taken 10 billion years to reach Earth — the majority of the universe's 13.8 billion-year lifespan. The discovery, made with the LOFAR (LOw Frequency ARray) radio instrument in Europe, indicates that galaxy clusters, which are some of the largest structures in the known universe, spend most of their existence wrapped in envelopes of high-energy particles. This insight gives scientists a better idea of how energy flows around galaxy clusters. And that in turn could improve our picture of cosmic evolution, study members said. "It's astonishing to find such a strong radio signal at this distance," study co-leader Roland Timmerman, an astronomer at Durham University in England, said in a statement. "It means these energetic particles and the processes creating them have been shaping galaxy clusters for nearly the entire history of the universe." The team posited two possible explanations for the formation of this mini-halo. One possibility is that the supermassive black holes at the hearts of the galaxies in the cluster are ejecting jets of high-energy particles and settling around their home cluster. One problem with this theory, however, is explaining how these particles have managed to maintain their energy as they take their place in a gigantic cloud. The second possible explanation is the existence of a natural particle collider around the galactic cluster. Particles in the hot ionized gas, or plasma, around the cluster may be slamming together at near light-speeds, resulting in the highly energetic particles in the halo. Related Stories: — This baby galaxy cluster is powering extreme star formation with a hidden fuel tank — Our expanding universe: Age, history & other facts — World's largest visible light telescope spies a galaxy cluster warping space-time The team behind the new research believes their results offer a rare chance to observe a galaxy cluster just after it has formed. It also suggests that galactic clusters are filled with energetic particles for billions of years longer than had previously been thought. And further study of this distant radio mini-halo should reveal just where these charged particles originated, according to the scientists. The team's research has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, with a preprint version available on the research repository arXiv.
India Today
06-06-2025
- Science
- India Today
Forget Trump vs Musk, two galaxies are about to collide in space
While Donald Trump and Elon Musk beef continues, there is something even bigger happening in the Chandra X-ray Observatory, along with other telescopes, has captured a rare cosmic event: two massive galaxy clusters that collided about a billion years ago are now on course to crash into each other system, known as PSZ2 G181, lies approximately 2.8 billion light-years from Galaxy clusters are among the largest structures in the universe, consisting of hundreds or thousands of galaxies, vast amounts of superheated gas, and invisible dark matter, all bound together by gravity. Photo: Nasa PSZ2 G181 is a lower-mass system compared to other known colliding clusters, making this event particularly unusual and valuable for radio observations by the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) in the Netherlands revealed bracket-shaped structures—likely shock fronts—on the outskirts of the shock fronts are similar to sonic booms created when jets break the sound barrier and are thought to have formed from the initial collision's disruption of that first impact, the shock fronts have traveled outward and are now separated by about 11 million light-years, the largest such separation ever composite images combine X-ray data from Nasa's Chandra (shown in purple) and ESA's XMM-Newton (blue) with LOFAR's radio data (red) and optical images from the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS). These observations reveal three shock fronts aligned along the collision axis, which scientists interpret as early signs of the clusters' impending second their initial pass, the two clusters slowed down and have begun moving back toward each other, setting the stage for another massive cosmic collision. Researchers are still determining the exact mass of each cluster, but the total mass is less than that of other colliding systems, making PSZ2 G181 an exceptional discovery, detailed in a series of papers led by Andra Stroe of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, offers a unique window into the dynamics of galaxy cluster collisions and the growth of large-scale cosmic structures.
