Latest news with #LeidenObservatory
Daily Record
24-06-2025
- Science
- Daily Record
Massive thread of hot gas found linking galaxies and it's 10 times the mass of the Milky Way
The thread could contain some of the Universe's 'missing' matter, addressing a decades-long mystery Astronomers have uncovered a colossal, searing-hot filament of gas linking four galaxy clusters in the Shapley Supercluster - a discovery that could finally solve the mystery of the Universe's missing matter. This giant thread, 10 times the mass of the Milky Way and stretching 23 million light-years, is one of the best confirmations yet that vast, faint filaments connect the Universe's largest structures in a cosmic web. Over one-third of the 'normal' matter in the local Universe - the visible stuff making up stars, planets, galaxies, life - is missing. It hasn't yet been seen, but it's needed to make our models of the cosmos work properly, NASA says. Said models suggest that this elusive matter might exist in long strings of gas, or filaments, bridging the densest pockets of space. "While we've spotted filaments before, it's tricky to make out their properties," said lead researcher Konstantinos Migkas of Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands. "They're faint, making it difficult to isolate their light from that of any galaxies, black holes, and other objects lying nearby. "For the first time, our results closely match what we see in our leading model of the cosmos - something that's not happened before. It seems that the simulations were right all along." Clocking in at over 10 million degrees, the filament contains around 10 times the mass of the Milky Way and connects four galaxy clusters - two on one end, two on the other. All are part of the Shapley Supercluster, a collection of more than 8000 galaxies that forms one of the most massive structures in the nearby Universe. The filament stretches diagonally away from us through the supercluster for 23 million light-years, the equivalent of traversing the Milky Way end to end around 230 times. The astronomers used the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton and JAXA's Suzaku X-ray space telescopes to make the discovery. "Thanks to XMM-Newton we could identify and remove these cosmic contaminants, so we knew we were looking at the gas in the filament and nothing else," co-author Florian Pacaud of the University of Bonn, Germany, added. "Our approach was really successful, and reveals that the filament is exactly as we'd expect from our best large-scale simulations of the Universe." As well as unveiling a huge and previously unseen thread of matter running through the nearby cosmos, the finding shows how some of the densest and most extreme structures in the Universe - galaxy clusters - are connected over colossal distances. It also sheds light on the very nature of the 'cosmic web', the vast, invisible cobweb of filaments that underpins the structure of everything we see around us. "This research... reinforces our standard model of the cosmos and validates decades of simulations," Norbert Schartel, ESA XMM-Newton Project Scientist, added. "It seems that the 'missing' matter may truly be lurking in hard-to-see threads woven across the Universe." Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'.
Yahoo
19-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Astronomers Uncover a Massive Shaft of Missing Matter
Another clue about the whereabouts of the missing matter in the Universe has just emerged from amid the largest local cosmic structure. X-ray observations have revealed a massive filament of hot gas, measuring some 23 million light-years in length, in the space between four sub-clusters of galaxies in the enormous, 8,000-galaxy strong Shapley Supercluster. "For the first time, our results closely match what we see in our leading model of the cosmos – something that's not happened before," says astrophysicist Konstantinos Migkas of Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands. "It seems that the simulations were right all along." Most matter in the Universe comprises of a 'dark' variety we can't easily identify. Only around 15 percent of matter exists in the form of far more familiar protons, neutrons and electrons – what we might call 'normal matter'. We know more or less how much normal matter there was in the early Universe, just after the Big Bang, thanks to the Cosmic Microwave Background, the fossil radiation that propagated through space-time when the Universe became transparent. A huge problem arises when we compare that early Universe quantity of normal matter to the amount that's around now. All the stars, black holes, galaxies, planets, dust, gas, and everything else we can see only accounts for around half of what we'd expect to find. Matter can't be destroyed, so where the heck did it go? The best explanation we have is that it ended up in intergalactic space – vast amounts of material so tenuously distributed along the cosmic web that we can't directly see it. Increasing evidence of this faint reservoir has been emerging for the last few years; and the discovery of this filament is some of the best evidence yet. RELATED: Half The Universe's Matter Was Missing. Astronomers Just Found It. The cosmic web is a vast network of filaments of dark matter that span intergalactic space, connecting galaxies and acting as a "superhighway" along which galaxies and matter are funneled. We can't see these filaments easily, but Migkas and his team identified one by comparing observations from two X-ray telescopes. The now-retired Suzaku X-ray telescope was excellent for observing faint X-radiation that is spread over a large surface area, while XMM-Newton can pick out point sources of very bright X-rays. The researchers used existing images taken by the former to detect the glow of gas within the filament, while observations from the latter allowed them to remove contaminating X-rays from sources such as black holes. The resulting structure is a beast, stretching between two pairs of galaxy clusters named A3528S/N and A3530/32. Along its 23 million-light-year length, it contains enough material to fill 10 Milky Way galaxies, blazing at a temperature of more than 10 million degrees Celsius. It is, the researchers say, exactly what such a filament is expected to be, based on simulations of the Universe. "This research is a great example of collaboration between telescopes, and creates a new benchmark for how to spot the light coming from the faint filaments of the cosmic web," says astronomer and XMM-Newton project scientist Norbert Schartel of the European Space Agency. "More fundamentally, it reinforces our standard model of the cosmos and validates decades of simulations: it seems that the 'missing' matter may truly be lurking in hard-to-see threads woven across the Universe." The research has been published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. Our Galaxy's Monster Black Hole Is Spinning Almost as Fast as Physics Allows Did a Passing Star Cause Earth to Warm 56 Million Years Ago? A Game-Changing Telescope Is About to Drop First Pics. Here's How to Watch.
BBC News
21-03-2025
- Science
- BBC News
Oxygen found in most distant known galaxy from Earth
Oxygen has been found in the most distant galaxy ever as JADES-GS-z14-0, the galaxy was detected last year by Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope. Its light took more than thirteen billion years to reach Earth, meaning it can reveal what the universe was like when it was just 300 million years old. Astronomers say that the discovery provides evidence that the universe developed much faster after the Big Bang than previously thought. What have scientists discovered? The study was carried out by two teams of experts - one from Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands and the other by the Scuola Normale Superiore University in Pisa, both used data from the Alma telescope in the Chilean to the European Southern Observatory, galaxies usually start their lives full of young stars, which are made mostly of light elements such as hydrogen and stars evolve, they create heavier elements like oxygen, which then gets scattered through their galaxy after they previously believed that a galaxy such as JADES-GS-z14-0, which is only 300 million years old, was therefore too young to contain the two different teams of astronomers found that despite its young age, JADES-GS-z14-0 contained around 10 times more heavy elements than Schouws, from Leiden Observatory, said: "The results show the galaxy has formed very rapidly and is also maturing rapidly, adding to a growing body of evidence that the formation of galaxies happens much faster than was expected."Stefano Carniani, from the Scuola Normale Superiore, added: "I was astonished by the unexpected results because they opened a new view on the first phases of galaxy evolution."The evidence that a galaxy is already mature in the infant Universe raises questions about when and how galaxies formed," he explained.
CNN
20-03-2025
- Science
- CNN
Oxygen detected in the most distant galaxy ever found
Summary Astronomers have discovered oxygen and heavy metals in galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0, the most distant galaxy ever found at 13.4 billion light-years away. The presence of these elements suggests galaxies formed much faster than expected in the early universe. Researchers described the unexpectedly mature galaxy as "like finding an adolescent where you would only expect babies," according to study author Sander Schouws. The galaxy appears unusually large and bright and contains 10 times more heavy elements than expected. Scientists are using both the James Webb Space Telescope and ALMA observatory to investigate whether the galaxy and its rapid evolution are unique. Astronomers have made the surprising discovery of oxygen and elements like heavy metals in the most distant known galaxy. The galaxy is 13.4 billion light-years away, meaning it formed in the early days of the universe. Astronomers believe the big bang created the universe 13.8 billion years ago. The unusually large, luminous distant galaxy, called JADES-GS-z14-0, was initially detected in January 2024 using the James Webb Space Telescope, which observes the universe in infrared light that's invisible to the human eye. The space observatory can effectively peer back in time to the beginning of a mysterious era called Cosmic Dawn, or the first few hundred million years after the big bang when the first galaxies were born, because it can observe light that has traveled for billions of years across space to Earth. Light from JADES-GS-z14-0 has taken 13.4 billion years to reach our corner of the universe, so Webb and other observatories such as ALMA, or the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile's Atacama Desert, are seeing the galaxy as it was when the universe was only about 300 million years old. When astronomers used ALMA to follow up on Webb's initial observations, they were stunned to find the presence of oxygen and heavy metals because their presence suggests that galaxies formed more quickly than expected in the early days of the universe. The results of the ALMA detections were published Thursday in separate studies in The Astrophysical Journal and Astronomy & Astrophysics. 'It is like finding an adolescent where you would only expect babies,' said Sander Schouws, lead author of The Astrophysical Journal study and a doctoral candidate at Leiden Observatory at Leiden University in the Netherlands, in a statement. 'The results show the galaxy has formed very rapidly and is also maturing rapidly, adding to a growing body of evidence that the formation of galaxies happens much faster than was expected.' The fact that JADES-GS-z14-0 was laden with heavy elements is causing astronomers to question what some of the earliest galaxies were really like — as well as how many more they may find using Webb and ALMA. A bright light leads to a surprise Multiple aspects of JADES-GS-z14-0, including its large size and brightness, have proved to be unexpected. As Webb surveyed 700 distant galaxies, this one turned out to be the third brightest despite it being the farthest, Schouws said. But the oldest galaxies are expected to be smaller and dimmer because the universe was much smaller at the time. 'In general, galaxies this early in the universe are very different from the famous galaxies we know from the beautiful images of Hubble and JWST,' Schouws said in an email. 'They are a lot more compact, rich in gas and messy/disordered. The conditions are more extreme because a lot of stars are forming rapidly in a small volume.' Galaxies typically begin from huge gas clouds that collapse and rotate, filling with young stars that are largely made of light elements such as helium and hydrogen. As stars evolve over time, they create heavier elements such as oxygen and metals, which disperse throughout the galaxy as stars explode at the end of their lifetime. In turn, the elements released by dying stars lead to the formation of more stars as well as the planets that orbit them. But nothing about JADES-GS-z14-0 fits that model. Instead, the galaxy contains 10 times more heavy elements than expected, the study authors said. 'Such elements are produced by massive stars and the large amount of oxygen suggests that several generations of massive stars were already born and died,' said Carniani, assistant professor at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, Italy, and lead author of the Astronomy & Astrophysics study, in a statement. 'In conclusion (JADES-GS-z14-0) is more mature than expected and these results imply that the first generation of galaxies assembled their mass very quickly.' Going the distance Using ALMA also enabled the researchers to confirm the distance of the galaxy, originally measured using Webb, and refine their measurements. Together, both telescopes can be used to study the formation and evolution of the first galaxies, said Rychard Bouwens, associate professor at Leiden University and coauthor of the study in The Astrophysical Journal. 'I was really surprised by this clear detection of oxygen in JADES-GS-z14-0,' said Gergö Popping, a European Southern Observatory astronomer at the European ALMA Regional Centre, in a statement. Popping did not participate in either study. 'It suggests galaxies can form more rapidly after the Big Bang than had previously been thought. This result showcases the important role ALMA plays in unraveling the conditions under which the first galaxies in our Universe formed.' While Webb can help identify extremely distant galaxies, ALMA can zoom in to study the gas and dust within them by detecting the far-infrared light they emit, Carniani said. Studying such galaxies can help shed light on the many remaining mysteries of Cosmic Dawn, such as what occurred shortly after the universe first began and the identities of the first celestial objects to appear. The study authors believe the early galaxies may have formed more stars, and stars on a more massive scale, than expected, which would also affect the brightness of the galaxy overall. 'It's like burning candles: you can have candles with a wide wick that have a bright flame (massive stars) or you can have candles that burn slow and efficient (normal stars),' Schouws said. But more observations are needed to understand exactly what the researchers are seeing, he said. The team wants to determine whether the galaxy and its rapid evolution are truly unique, or if there are more like it in the early universe since a single celestial object is not enough to establish a new model of galaxy formation, Carniani said.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Astronomers Stunned by Abundant Oxygen in Earliest Known Galaxy
A galaxy gleaming in the Cosmic Dawn, just 300 million years after the Big Bang, has just been spotted harboring something it oughtn't. JADES-GS-z14-0, new observations reveal, is rich with oxygen – which is an absolute banger of a surprise, since scientists had thought elements heavier than hydrogen and helium weren't around in significant quantities until much later in time. It's yet another clue that the early Universe matured much more quickly than we thought possible. "It is like finding an adolescent where you would only expect babies," says cosmologist Sander Schouws of Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands. "The results show the galaxy has formed very rapidly and is also maturing rapidly, adding to a growing body of evidence that the formation of galaxies happens much faster than was expected." The mere existence of JADES-GS-z14-0 was problematic enough for our cosmological models, since we believe that galaxies need quite a bit of time to grow. In order to be detectable to our telescopes across more than 13.4 billion light-years, the galaxy needed to be quite large and bright – too large and bright to be easily explained. The other thing that takes time to grow is elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. When the Universe as we know it first winked into existence in the Big Bang, the first elements that formed were hydrogen and helium. Overdensities in this medium led to the formation of the first stars. The gas collapsed in on itself under gravity; more gas fed the growth until the core was hot and dense enough to kickstart the fusion of hydrogen atoms into heavier and heavier elements. It's only through this process of stellar core fusion that oxygen came to exist – and here's the sting in the tail. The star has to live its entire life and die in a supernova for those fused elements to disperse out into space. That can happen in a relatively short timeframe; the lifetimes of the most massive stars can be less than 10 million years. But when a team of astronomers took measurements of the galaxy using the powerful Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile, the amount of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium detected in JADES-GS-z14-0 was 10 times higher than predicted. The result suggests that the production rate is likewise beyond our wildest expectations. "I was astonished by the unexpected results because they opened a new view on the first phases of galaxy evolution," says astrophysicist Stefano Carniani of the Scuola Normale Superiore in Italy. "The evidence that a galaxy is already mature in the infant Universe raises questions about when and how galaxies formed." Because space is expanding, the light emitted from distant galaxies has become stretched into red wavelengths due to the Doppler effect. JWST is the most powerful infrared space telescope ever built, optimized for detecting these redshifted objects. Since it has launched, astronomers have discovered more large galaxies way earlier in the Universe than we expected to see, painting a very different picture of how the early Universe evolved in the first billion years after the Big Bang. This latest discovery of oxygen in JADES-GS-z14-0 is just another piece of the puzzle, increasingly indicating that galaxies grew and evolved much more quickly than we thought in the early Universe. Now we just have to figure out how that rapid growth changes the cosmological timeline, and what other assumptions we have about the early Universe need to be reexamined. The research has been detailed in two papers accepted into The Astrophysical Journal and Astronomy & Astrophysics. They are available on arXiv, here and here. Space Is Set to Become a 'Wild West' as Outdated Laws Struggle to Keep Up JWST Detects Carbon Dioxide Outside Solar System For First Time Euclid's First Deep Fields Images Offer Glimpse Into 'Dark Universe'
