ICRAR | Astro3D | RAS | 2018 Oct 16
The Moon may be the key to unlocking how the first stars and galaxies shaped the early Universe.The Milky Way in radio waves reflecting off the MoonClick to play embedded YouTube video.
Video Credit: Dr Ben McKinley, Curtin University/ICRAR/ASTRO 3D.
Teresa Slaven-Blair, Curtin University/ICRAR/ASTRO 3D.
Kirsten Gottschalk, University of Western Australia/ICRAR.
Moon image courtesy of NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University.
A team of astronomers led by Dr Benjamin McKinley at Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) observed the Moon with a radio telescope to help search for the faint signal from hydrogen atoms in the infant Universe.
“Before there were stars and galaxies, the Universe was pretty much just hydrogen, floating around in space,” Dr McKinley said.
“Since there are no sources of the optical light visible to our eyes, this early stage of the Universe is known as the ‘cosmic dark ages’.
In research published in the Oxford University Press Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society today, the astronomers describe how they have used the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) radio telescope to help search for radio signals given off by the hydrogen atoms.
“If we can detect this radio signal it will tell us whether our theories about the evolution of the Universe are correct.” ...
Measuring the Global 21-cm Signal with the MWA-I: Improved Measurements
of the Galactic Synchrotron Background Using Lunar Occultation ~ B. McKinley et al
- Monthly Notices of the RAS 481(4):5034 (Dec 2018) DOI: 10.1093/mnras/sty2437
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1809.01351 > 05 Sep 2018