Editor TLN
March 31 () –
A long stream of gas running towards a massive galaxyand which provides the raw material to form billions of new stars, has been discovered in the early universe.
The discovery, made with the ALMA telescope (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) and published in sciencesheds light on how galaxies formed and points to the existence of a large-scale material supply network in the cosmos.
The detected current flows towards the galaxy 4C 41.17, also known as the Anthill Galaxy because it is made up of numerous small galaxies that will eventually merge under the effect of gravity and end up forming a single massive galaxy. It is a very distant galaxy, whose light emerged some 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, when the universe was little more than a tenth of its present age. His observation allows us, thus, glimpse very remote stages in the history of the universe.
“Similar to rivers that flow into the ocean and carry nutrient-rich sediments, the new ALMA observations reveal a cosmic current containing a large amount of cold gas rich in carbon atoms,” explains Bjorn Emonts, a researcher at the Observatory. National Radio Astronomer of the United States (NRAO) and lead author of the research. “This gas constitutes the raw material from which new stars will form.”
With the amount of gas it receives, hundreds of new stars can form in the galaxy every year. “This is consistent with the previously observed rate of star formation in the Anthill, and indicates that the cosmic stream is likely the primary source of raw material that the Anthill Galaxy needs to continue to grow,” he says. it’s a statement Montserrat Villar-Martín, a researcher at the Center for Astrobiology (CAB/CSIC-INTA), who is participating in the research.
In fact, this current could help the Anthill grow into a giant galaxy. And, conversely, if the gas supply stopped, it would be destined to become a barren galaxy populated only by old stars in about half a billion years.a brief period of time on cosmic scales.
A POSSIBLE LARGE-SCALE SUPPLY
The science team concludes that the current comes from what is known as the “cosmic web,” or the web-like structure of interconnected filaments of gas, galaxies, and dark matter that spans the entire universe.
“The cosmic current that we have detected covers almost half a million light years, which is equivalent to almost ten times the size of our galaxy, the Milky Way,” says Miguel Pérez Torres, a researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC). involved in the discovery – But it is a small structure compared to the vast scale of the cosmic web. If both are connected, that would mean that the Anthill Galaxy is not being built in isolation, it has a supply pipeline tied to large-scale gas storage throughout the universe.”
The cosmic web is believed to contain mainly hydrogen and helium, the primordial elements that were produced in the Big Bang. The large amount of carbon in the stream came as a surprise, since this element, like many others, only occurs in stars. The presence of carbon probably means that the stream is carrying small galaxies, as numerical simulations predict: the stars in these small galaxies enrich the stream with carbon and other “building” materials before reaching the Anthill.
The science team hopes that future ALMA observations will reveal whether cosmic streams of carbon-rich gas are also connected to other distant anthills, into a cosmic network of supply lines that would help build galaxies.
