Inside a galaxy merger are hydroxyl molecules, composed of 1 atom of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. When one molecule absorbs a photon at an 18cm wavelength, it emits two photons of the identical wavelength. When molecular fuel may be very dense, usually when two galaxies merge, this emission will get very brilliant and will be detected by radio telescopes such because the MeerKAT. Credit score: © IDIA/LADUMA utilizing information from NASA/StSci/SKAO/MolView
A strong radio-wave laser, referred to as a ‘megamaser,’ has been noticed by the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa.
The record-breaking discover is essentially the most distant megamaser of its form ever detected, at about 5 billion gentle years from Earth.
The sunshine from the megamaser has traveled 58 thousand billion billion (58 adopted by 21 zeros) kilometers to Earth.
The three-color optical picture of the host galaxy of the hydroxyl megamaser, taken from the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) on the 8.2 m Subaru Telescope. Credit score: Subaru Telescope
The invention was made by a global staff of astronomers led by Dr. Marcin Glowacki, who beforehand labored on the Inter-College Institute for Information Intensive Astronomy and the College of the Western Cape in South Africa.
Dr. Glowacki, who's now primarily based on the Curtin College node of the Worldwide Centre for Radio Astronomy Analysis (ICRAR) in Western Australia, mentioned megamasers are normally created when two galaxies violently collide within the Universe.
MeerKAT telescope. Credit score: © SARAO (South African Radio Astronomy Observatory)
“When galaxies collide, the fuel they comprise turns into extraordinarily dense and may set off concentrated beams of sunshine to shoot out,” he mentioned.
“That is the primary hydroxyl megamaser of its form to be noticed by MeerKAT and essentially the most distant seen by any telescope to this point.
“It’s spectacular that, with only a single night time of observations, we’ve already discovered a record-breaking megamaser. It reveals simply how good the telescope is.”
The record-breaking object was named ‘Nkalakatha’ [pronounced ng-kuh-la-kuh-tah]—an isiZulu phrase that means “massive boss.”
Dr. Glowacki mentioned the megamaser was detected on the primary night time of a survey involving greater than 3000 hours of observations by the MeerKAT telescope.
The staff is utilizing MeerKAT to watch slender areas of the sky extraordinarily deeply and can measure atomic hydrogen in galaxies from the distant previous to now. The mix of learning hydroxl masers and hydrogen will assist astronomers higher perceive how the Universe has developed over time.
“We've got follow-up observations of the megamaser deliberate and hope to make many extra discoveries,” Dr. Glowacki mentioned.
MeerKAT is a precursor instrument for the Sq. Kilometre Array—a worldwide initiative to construct the world’s largest radio telescopes in Western Australia and South Africa.
Nkalakatha’s host galaxy as seen from Perth, Western Australia. It’s ~5 billion gentle years away and invisible to the bare eye, between Archernar and Aldebaran. Credit score: ICRAR
Reference: “LADUMA: Discovery of a luminous OH megamaser at z>0.5” by Marcin Glowacki, Jordan D. Collier, Amir Kazemi-Moridani, Bradley Frank, Hayley Roberts, Jeremy Darling, Hans-Rainer Klöckner, Nathan Adams, Andrew J. Baker, Matthew Bershady, Tariq Blecher, Sarah-Louise Blyth, Rebecca Bowler, Barbara Catinella, Laurent Chemin, Steven M. Crawford, Catherine Cress, Romeel Davé, Roger Deane, Erwin de Blok, Jacinta Delhaize, Kenneth Duncan, Ed Elson, Sean February, Eric Gawiser, Peter Hatfield, Julia Healy, Patricia Henning, Kelley M. Hess, Ian Heywood, Benne W. Holwerda, Munira Hoosain, John P. Hughes, Zackary L. Hutchens, Matt Jarvis, Sheila Kannappan, Neal Katz, Dušan Kereš, Marie Korsaga, Renée C. Kraan-Korteweg, Philip Lah, Michelle Lochner, Natasha Maddox, Sphesihle Makhathini, Gerhardt R. Meurer, Martin Meyer, Danail Obreschkow, Se-Heon Oh, Tom Oosterloo, Joshua Oppor, Hengxing Pan, D. J. Pisano, Nandrianina Randriamiarinarivo, Swara Ravindranath, Anja C. Schröder, Rosalind Skelton, Oleg Smirnov, Mathew Smith, Rachel S. Somerville, Raghunathan Srianand, Lister Staveley-Smith, Masayuki Tanaka, Mattia Vaccari, Wim van Driel, Marc Verheijen, Fabian Walter, John F. Wu and Martin A. Zwaan, Astrophysical Journal Letters.
arXiv:2204.02523
Inter-College Institute for Information Intensive Astronomy
The Inter-university Institute for Information Intensive Astronomy is a partnership of three South African universities, the Universities of Cape City, of the Western Cape and of Pretoria in addition to the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory. The overarching aim of IDIA is to construct throughout the South African college analysis neighborhood the capability and experience in information intensive analysis to allow world management on MeerKAT massive survey tasks and huge tasks on different SKA pathfinder telescopes.
ICRAR
The Worldwide Centre for Radio Astronomy Analysis (ICRAR) is a three way partnership between Curtin College and The College of Western Australia with help and funding from the State Authorities of Western Australia.
MeerKAT
The South African MeerKAT radio telescope, located 90 km exterior the small Northern Cape city of Carnarvon, is a precursor to the Sq. Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope and might be built-in into the mid-frequency part of SKA Section 1. The MeerKAT telescope is an array of 64 interlinked receptors (a receptor is the whole antenna construction, with the principle reflector, sub-reflector and all receivers, digitizers, and different electronics put in). The MeerKAT is constructed and operated by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory.
The Sq. Kilometre Array
The Sq. Kilometre Array (SKA) challenge is a global effort to construct the world’s largest radio telescope, with finally over a sq. kilometer (a million sq. meters) of amassing space.
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