International teams of astronomers have used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to explore the distant corner of the universe first revealed in the iconic images of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF). These new ALMA observations are significantly deeper and sharper than previous surveys at millimetre wavelengths.
The National Science Foundation has approved funding to expand the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionisation Array (HERA) in South Africa. Upgrading the number of antennas from 19 to 240 by the year 2018 will enable HERA to study more clearly the impact of cosmic dawn, the moment a few hundred million years after the Big Bang when the first stars and galaxies blazed awake.
Quasars are supermassive black holes that sit at the centre of enormous galaxies, accreting matter. They shine so brightly that they are among the most distant objects in the universe that we can currently study. New work from a team led by Carnegie’s Eduardo Bañados has discovered 63 new quasars from when the universe was just 7 percent of its present age.
Hundreds of scientists from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) collaborated to make the largest-ever, three-dimensional map of distant galaxies. The astronomers then used this map to make one of the most precise measurements yet of the dark energy currently driving the accelerated expansion of the universe.
The processes that cause galaxies to cease star formation are not well understood and constitute an outstanding problem in the study of the evolution of elliptical, spiral (such as the Milky Way) and irregular galaxies. Now, using a large sample of around 70,000 galaxies, a team of researchers may have an explanation for why some stop creating stars.
Astronomers have discovered evidence for an unusual kind of black hole born extremely early in the universe. They showed that a recently discovered unusual source of intense radiation is likely powered by a “direct-collapse black hole,” a type of object predicted by theorists more than a decade ago.
Astronomers today (28 June) released spectacular new infrared images of the distant universe, providing the deepest view ever obtained over a large area of sky. The release of the Ultra-Deep Survey (UDS) represents the culmination of a project using the 3.8-metre United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) on Hawaii, building up more than 1,000 hours of exposure time.
An international team of astronomers has used the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) to detect glowing oxygen in a distant galaxy seen just 700 million years after the Big Bang. This is the most distant galaxy in which oxygen has ever been unambiguously detected, and it is most likely being ionised by powerful radiation from young giant stars.
The drizzle of stars scattered across this image forms an irregular dwarf galaxy known as UGC 4879. Some 2.3 million light-years from its closest neighbour, UGC 4879’s isolation means that it has not interacted with any surrounding galaxies, making it an ideal laboratory for astronomers looking to understand the complex mysteries of starbirth throughout the universe.
When Edwin Hubble discovered nearly 100 years ago that the universe was uniformly expanding in all directions, the finding was a big surprise. Then, in the mid-1990s, another shocker occurred: astronomers found that the expansion rate was accelerating, perhaps due to “dark energy.” Now, the latest measurements of our runaway universe suggest that it is expanding faster than astronomers thought.
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