• Astronomers detect 'galactic space laser

    From ScienceDaily@1:317/3 to All on Thu Apr 7 22:30:40 2022
    Astronomers detect 'galactic space laser'

    Date:
    April 7, 2022
    Source:
    International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research
    Summary:
    A powerful radio-wave laser, called a 'megamaser', has been observed
    by the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa. The record-breaking find
    is the most distant megamaser of its kind ever detected, at about
    five billion light years from Earth. The light from the megamaser
    has traveled 58 thousand billion billion (58 followed by 21 zeros)
    kilometers to Earth.



    FULL STORY ==========================================================================
    A powerful radio-wave laser, called a 'megamaser', has been observed by
    the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa.


    ==========================================================================
    The record-breaking find is the most distant megamaser of its kind ever detected, at about five billion light years from Earth.

    The light from the megamaser has travelled 58 thousand billion billion
    (58 followed by 21 zeros) kilometres to Earth.

    The discovery was made by an international team of astronomers led by Dr
    Marcin Glowacki, who previously worked at the Inter-University Institute
    for Data Intensive Astronomy and the University of the Western Cape in
    South Africa.

    Dr Glowacki, who is now based at the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Western
    Australia, said megamasers are usually created when two galaxies violently collide in the Universe.

    "When galaxies collide, the gas they contain becomes extremely dense
    and can trigger concentrated beams of light to shoot out," he said.



    ========================================================================== "This is the first hydroxyl megamaser of its kind to be observed by
    MeerKAT and the most distant seen by any telescope to date.

    "It's impressive that, with just a single night of observations, we've
    already found a record-breaking megamaser. It shows just how good
    the telescope is." The record-breaking object was named 'Nkalakatha' [pronounced ng-kuh-la-kuh- tah] -- an isiZulu word meaning "big boss."
    Dr Glowacki said the megamaser was detected on the first night of a survey involving more than 3000 hours of observations by the MeerKAT telescope.

    The team is using MeerKAT to observe narrow regions of the sky extremely
    deeply and will measure atomic hydrogenin galaxies from the distant past
    to now. The combination of studying hydroxl masers and hydrogen will
    help astronomers better understand how the Universe has evolved over time.

    "We have follow-up observations of the megamaser planned and hope to
    make many more discoveries," Dr Glowacki said.

    MeerKAT is a precursor instrument for the Square Kilometre Array --
    a global initiative to build the world's largest radio telescopes in
    Western Australia and South Africa.


    ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by International_Centre_for_Radio_Astronomy_Research. Note: Content may be
    edited for style and length.


    ========================================================================== Journal Reference:
    1. Marcin Glowacki, Jordan D. Collier, Amir Kazemi-Moridani, Bradley
    Frank,
    Hayley Roberts, Jeremy Darling, Hans-Rainer Klo"ckner, Nathan Adams,
    Andrew J. Baker, Matthew Bershady, Tariq Blecher, Sarah-Louise
    Blyth, Rebecca Bowler, Barbara Catinella, Laurent Chemin, Steven
    M. Crawford, Catherine Cress, Romeel Dave', Roger Deane, Erwin de
    Blok, Jacinta Delhaize, Kenneth Duncan, Ed Elson, Sean February,
    Eric Gawiser, Peter Hatfield, Julia Healy, Patricia Henning,
    Kelley M. Hess, Ian Heywood, Benne W. Holwerda, Munira Hoosain,
    John P. Hughes, Zackary L. Hutchens, Matt Jarvis, Sheila Kannappan,
    Neal Katz, Dusan Keres, Marie Korsaga, Rene'e C. Kraan-Korteweg,
    Philip Lah, Michelle Lochner, Natasha Maddox, Sphesihle Makhathini,
    Gerhardt R. Meurer, Martin Meyer, Danail Obreschkow, Se-Heon Oh,
    Tom Oosterloo, Joshua Oppor, Hengxing Pan, D. J.

    Pisano, Nandrianina Randriamiarinarivo, Swara Ravindranath, Anja C.

    Schro"der, Rosalind Skelton, Oleg Smirnov, Mathew Smith, Rachel S.

    Somerville, Raghunathan Srianand, Lister Staveley-Smith,
    Masayuki Tanaka, Mattia Vaccari, Wim van Driel, Marc Verheijen,
    Fabian Walter, John F. Wu, Martin A. Zwaan. LADUMA: Discovery of
    a luminous OH megamaser at z>0.5.

    The Astrophysical Journal Letters (accepted), 2022 [abstract] ==========================================================================

    Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220407101031.htm

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