To get a better view at the Universe, astronomers have combined two of NASA’s great devices and now telescopes Hubble and Spitzer revealed faint galaxy.
- Hubble and Spitzer combined can have a better look at the farthest corners of the Universe
- The newest astronomical discovery is the oldest galaxy called Tayna
- Gigantic cluster forms cosmic natural magnifying glass
You might be thinking that yet another found galaxy is not such big a deal, especially if it’s faint. But the reason why it’s faint is that this is probably the oldest galaxy in the Universe. According to astronomers’ calculations, the galaxy existed about 13.8 billion years ago, about 400 million years after the big bang.
Being the first time astronomers manage to find such an old galaxy, they have given it the nickname Tayna, which means “first-born” in a language called Aymara, spoken in some regions of South America.
Of course, this is not the first time the two telescopes have worked together successfully. They have been detecting other very remote galaxies so far, but this one is the faintest and closest to the big bang. This is why astronomers believe it to be very representative for the early universe and are looking forward to further analyze it in the hopes of finding more about that era.
The finding is actually part of a bigger project in which have been discovered 22 galaxies from ancient times. They are located very far, somewhere at the ‘horizon’ of the Universe. A report of the project was published in ‘The Astrophysical Journal’ on December 3.
The Tayna is about the size of the Large Magellanic Cloud. This LMC is one of Milky Way’s diminutive satellites. Astronomers have been able to distinct the object and the way it’s evolving thanks to a kind of natural magnifying glass. What acts as a magnifying glass is a huge cluster of galaxies located about 4 billion light-years away from us.
Here’s how it works: similar to a zoom camera, the gravity of the gigantic cluster enhances the light of more distant objects making them look about 20 times brighter. This phenomenon is also called gravitational lensing and Albert Einstein was the first to talk about it as part of the Theory of Relativity.
The exact distance was measured with colors. More specifically, although the stars’ light is blue-white, it has been changed to infrared wavelengths. This red-colored light is easily observed by the telescopes Hubble and Spitzer combined.
It is expected that the James Webb Space Telescope will allow astronomers to further uncover the mysteries of the early universe seeing exactly how ancient galaxies were born.
Image source: www.bing.com
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