ALMA: Unstoppable Monster in the Early Universe
Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2018 6:09 pm
Unstoppable Monster in the Early Universe
ALMA | NAOJ | ESO | NRAO | 2018 Aug 29
The Gravitationally Unstable Gas Disk of a Starburst Galaxy 12 Billion Years Ago ~ K. Tadaki et al
ALMA | NAOJ | ESO | NRAO | 2018 Aug 29
ALMA obtains most detailed view of distant starburst galaxy
Astronomers obtained the most detailed anatomy chart of a monster galaxy located 12.4 billion light-years away. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the team revealed that the molecular clouds in the galaxy are highly unstable, which leads to runaway star formation. Monster galaxies are thought to be the ancestors of the huge elliptical galaxies in today’s Universe; therefore, these findings pave the way to understand the formation and evolution of such galaxies. ...
Monster galaxies, or starburst galaxies, form stars at a startling pace; 1000 times higher than the star formation rate in our Galaxy. However, why are they so active? To tackle this problem, researchers need to know the environment around the stellar nurseries. Drawing detailed maps of molecular clouds is one crucial step to scout these cosmic monsters. ...
Researchers have found that COSMOS-AzTEC-1 is rich with the ingredients of stars, but it was still difficult to figure out the nature of the cosmic gas in the galaxy. The team utilized the high resolution and high sensitivity of ALMA to observe this monster galaxy and obtain a detailed map of the distribution and the motion of the gas. Thanks to the most extended ALMA antenna configuration of 16 km, this is it the highest resolution molecular gas map of a distant monster galaxy. ...
The Gravitationally Unstable Gas Disk of a Starburst Galaxy 12 Billion Years Ago ~ K. Tadaki et al
- Nature 560(7720):613 (30 Aug 2018) DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0443-1
