A treasure trove of molecules has been discovered in two galaxies we saw 12 billion years ago, revealing information about how stars formed in the ancient realm.
One of the distant galaxies, APM 08279+5255, is a quasar – Active supermassive black hole Its core swallows a lot of gas – while the other galaxy, NCv1.143, is a more “normal” galaxy.However, both are thought to be forming Star At astonishing speeds, there are hundreds of times more stars than there are stars Milky Way Currently generating.
Astronomers used France’s NOEMA (Northern Extended Millimeter Array) to target the two galaxies. NOEMA is capable of detecting millimeter and submillimeter radio waves. Fascinatingly, a team led by Chentao Yang of Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden detected the emission of up to 13 different molecules in the two galaxies.
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“We see some electromagnetic spectrum “This is difficult to observe in nearby galaxies,” Young said in a press statement. expansion of the universethe light from distant galaxies like this is shifted to longer wavelengths that we can observe with radio telescopes [at] Submillimeter [wavelengths]”.
The discovery constitutes the largest collection of molecules ever detected in such a distant galaxy (there are now about 20 billion galaxies) light years far away, and getting farther apart due to the expansion of the universe).
The 13 different types of molecules detected include carbon monoxide, carbon monosulfide, and cyano (free radicals are molecules with unpaired electronic in the outer shell of one of its constituent atoms), formyl cation (a cation is a positively charged ion), hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen isocyanide, nitric oxide, and water.Yang’s team also detected five molecules never seen in the early universe: cyclopropene, a highly reactive organic molecule also discovered in saturnof moon titan), diazenium (formed from molecular nitrogen and hydrogen ions), the organic molecule ethynyl radical, hydronium ion (formed from water molecules and hydrogen ions), and methylene radical (a highly reactive organic molecule ).
All of these molecules are commonly found in the interstellar gas of our galaxy, and each provides clues about the environment in which they are found—the environment in which we see massive numbers of stars forming.
“We know that these galaxies are massive star factories, perhaps one of the largest in the universe,” Yang said.
The research team also found that the quasars in APM 08279+5255 contain more excited molecular gas at higher temperatures and densities than the entire NCv1.143, which may be the result of activity around the quasar’s black hole.Its molecular abundance is similar to that of active galaxies black hole In a more modern universe. Likewise, the molecular inventory of NCv1.143 is similar to local starburst galaxies, which are simply galaxies that birth large numbers of stars, such as the Cigar Galaxy in the constellation (Mesier 82) Big Dipper, Big bear. The chemical composition of these types of galaxies appears to have existed 12 billion years ago.
But not everything is created equal. The intensity of emissions from some molecules, such as carbon dioxide, combined with the extreme conditions of the star-forming gases of both galaxies, shows what is known as a “top-heavy initial mass function.” The initial mass function (IMF) describes how many stars of a given mass can form, with low-mass stars being more common than high-mass stars. A top-heavy IMF means that more massive stars could be formed in the early universe than can be formed today.This may not only explain why galaxies in the early universe were detected James Webb Space Telescope Brighter than expected – they contain larger, brighter stars – but also suggest the presence of more massive stars that explode with explosions Supernova will accelerate the development of chemistry in these galaxies, distributing heavy elements throughout the galaxy space.
“The most remarkable galaxies in the early universe are finally able to tell their story through their molecules,” said co-author Pierre Cox of Sorbonne University in France.
The findings were published in the Dec. 14 issue of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
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