Scientists, including those from the Niels Bohr Institute, used the Very Large Telescope and the ALMA radio telescope to determine the existence of a swarm of galaxies that revolve near a hyper-luminous galaxy. Phys.org brings the news.
The discovery should make astronomers learn more about how quasars emerge from very bright galaxies. Quasars are powered by supermassive black holes that eject powerful jets of energy.
Eyes set on W0410-0913
W0410-0913 is the moniker of a very bright, massive, and gas-rich galaxy from the early Universe. Astronomers focused their attention on it by looking way back in time: 12 billion years.
MicheleGinolfi, leader of the new study, explains as Phys.org quotes:
Before evolving into a full-blown quasar, some galaxies are thought to go through a phase of being very dusty, and very ‘active’ in terms of star formation and accretion of gas onto their central, supermassive black holes,
We set out to design an experiment to learn more about this transition phase.
Peter Laursen from the Cosmic Dawn Center in Copenhagen explains as the same source quotes:
The observations revealed that W0410-0913 is surrounded by a swarm of no fewer than 24 smaller galaxies. The cool thing about the MUSE instrument is that we can measure not only their position on the sky, but also their distance along our line of sight. In other words, we can measure their 3D positions.
Quasars are generally capable of emitting energies that can reach even trillions of electron volts. Such energy is so high that it’s even capable of surpassing the total of the light emitted by all of a galaxy’s stars.
The new study was published in Nature Communications.
