An international team of researchers led by Chinese scientists has discovered the largest atomic cloud in the universe – this is really an amazing discovery, because now experts in the field will be able to study the data much more effectively to understand the origin of galaxies. This cloud of hydrogen atoms has a total diameter of about 2 million light years (in the journal Nature, scientists specified that one light year is about 9.46 trillion kilometers), that is, it is twenty times larger than the Milky Way galaxy, in which humanity lives.
Such an incredible discovery was made possible thanks to a super-powerful Chinese telescope, which is located in Guizhou province in southwestern China. Using such sophisticated equipment, astronomers from China, Europe, and the United States, in a lengthy study, discovered a huge cloud of atoms just after they pointed an advanced spherical radio telescope (the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope) in the direction of a group of galaxies known as “Stephan’s Quintet.” Xu Cong, a leading astronomer at the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said that the Stafan Quintet has been actively studied with ground-based and space telescopes since its discovery 145 years ago, but no one has achieved such results.
Accordingly, the found cloud consists of hydrogen atoms that emit signature radiation unique in its kind – it was thanks to him that scientists were able to reveal information about events that occurred tens or even hundreds of millions of years ago, and answer questions about the origin of the oldest galaxies in the Universe. Xu Zong noted that the task was quite difficult, since it is extremely difficult to pick up weak signals of atoms in such a large observation area. It was only thanks to the FAST radio telescope and a plate the size of 30 football fields that the goal was achieved. The scientists also noted that the location of the atomic cloud is extremely unusual, as it is located relatively far from the central section of the Stefan Quintet. And, most importantly, experts said that such a huge cloud, most likely, has existed for billions of years.
“We wonder why it still exists at all, since low-density atomic gas should have been destroyed by ultraviolet radiation in the cosmic background, according to current theories.”
Now scientists will have to test many hypotheses and run a whole cycle of modeling how exactly this quintet was formed.
Source: Trash Box
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