Astronomers have recorded the merger of two galaxies 12.8 billion years ago, which led to the formation of a monster galaxy – one of the brightest types of objects in the Universe.
This was reported by the press service of the National Institute of Natural Sciences (Japan).
Quasars are bright objects that feed on matter falling into a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy in the early universe. The most common theory is that when two gas-rich galaxies merge to form a single larger galaxy, the gravitational interaction between the two galaxies causes gas to fall into the supermassive black hole in one or both galaxies, causing quasar activity, the paper notes.
To test this theory, an international team of researchers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio telescope to study an ancient pair of nearby quasars previously discovered by Japan’s 8.2-meter Subaru optical telescope.
Located in the direction of the constellation Virgo, this pair of quasars existed during the first 900 million years of the Universe’s existence.
The pair is faint, indicating that the quasars are still in the early stages of their evolution. The ALMA observations mapped the quasars’ host galaxies and showed that the galaxies are connected by a bridge of gas and dust. This indicates that the two galaxies are indeed merging, the paper says.
ALMA observations also allowed the researchers to measure the amount of gas – the material for new star formation.
The scientists found that both galaxies are very rich in gas, suggesting that in addition to more quasar activity, the future merger will also trigger a rapid increase in star formation, known as a “stellar burst.”
The combination of stellar and quasar activity is expected to create a super-luminous object in the early universe known as a monster galaxy, the paper notes.
Curvature of the Universe has copied a distant galaxy (PHOTO)
Source: Racurs
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