Description
Astronomers came across a shocking discovery on Friday when they detected a radio signal that was some 9 billion light-years away from its home planet, Earth. According to Space.com, the signal was emitted from what scientists have called the most distant galaxy known to mankind so far. The radio signal, captured by the Giant VHF Radio Telescope in India, was in the galaxy known as SDSSJ0826+5630.
The telescope was able to pick up the distant signal because it was bent by another galaxy located between the signal and the telescope, the researchers said. The bending of the signal is called gravitational lensing, which could find faraway galaxies and make a statement about the cosmic evolution of stars. Even a weak signal can also be recorded from very long distances and the composition of galaxies can also be known from this phenomenon. The researchers were able to determine that the atomic mass of hydrogen gas in SDSSJ0826+5630 is almost twice the mass of stars visible to us. Hydrogen gas "provides the basic fuel for star formation in a galaxy," the researchers write in the study. "Understanding the evolution of galaxies over cosmic time requires knowing the cosmic evolution of this neutral gas. "The research shows that scientists can investigate the cosmic evolution of neutral gas with low-frequency radio telescopes in coming times.
