Stellar cradles and graves seen in farthest galaxy ever

Date:
July 14, 2023
Source:
National Institutes of Natural Sciences
Summary:
New observations have distinguished the sites of star formation
and a possible site of star death from the surrounding nebula in
a galaxy 13.2 billion light-years away. This is the farthest that
such structures have been observed.


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FULL STORY ==========================================================================
New observations using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array
(ALMA) have distinguished the sites of star formation and a possible
site of star death from the surrounding nebula in a galaxy 13.2 billion light-years away.

This is the farthest that such structures have been observed.

A team led by Yoichi Tamura, an astronomer at Nagoya University, attempted high-resolution observations of MACS0416_Y1, located 13.2 billion
light-years away in the constellation Eridanus. Previous observations
of this galaxy by the same team had detected radio waves emitted by
both oxygen and dust, two components of interstellar nebulae. Detailed observations of the distribution of dust and oxygen can provide clues
about how stars are born and die within nebulae, but the observations
had lacked the resolution needed to see the structure of the nebulae.

This time the team observed with ALMA for 28 hours, zooming in on
MACS0416_Y1.

The results showed that the dust signal regions and oxygen emission
regions are intricately intertwined, avoiding each other, suggesting
the process where newly formed stars within the nebulae ionize the
surrounding gas.

Furthermore, the team found a massive cavity spanning approximately 1,000 light-years in the dust dominated regions. When many new, massive and
short- lived stars are born together, the resulting successive supernova explosions create enormous "superbubbles" in the nebulae. The discovered
cavity may indeed be such a superbubble.

Takuya Hashimoto from the University of Tsukuba describes the observation performance as follows: "It corresponds to capturing the extremely
weak light emitted by two fireflies located 3 centimeters apart on the
summit of Mount Fuji as seen from Tokyo, and being able to distinguish
between those two fireflies." Measurements of the motion of the gas in
the nebulae indicate an environment where many stars may form together
as massive clusters. Team leader Tamura explains the future prospects
based on these results, "In the future, more detailed information can
be obtained by conducting high-resolution observations of these star
clusters themselves, using instruments such as the James Webb Space
Telescope and the planned Extremely Large Telescopes."
* RELATED_TOPICS
o Space_&_Time
# Nebulae # Stars # Galaxies # Astronomy #
Space_Telescopes # Astrophysics # Space_Exploration #
Extrasolar_Planets
* RELATED_TERMS
o Supernova o Spitzer_space_telescope o Stellar_evolution o
Blue_supergiant_star o Galaxy o Andromeda_Galaxy o Star_Trek
o Light-year

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========================================================================== Related Multimedia:
* Nebulae_in_MACS0416_Y1 ========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Yoichi Tamura, Tom J. L. C. Bakx, Akio K. Inoue, Takuya Hashimoto,
Tsuyoshi Tokuoka, Chihiro Imamura, Bunyo Hatsukade, Minju M. Lee,
Kana Moriwaki, Takashi Okamoto, Kazuaki Ota, Hideki Umehata,
Naoki Yoshida, Erik Zackrisson, Masato Hagimoto, Hiroshi Matsuo,
Ikkoh Shimizu, Yuma Sugahara, Tsutomu T. Takeuchi. The 300 pc
Resolution Imaging of a z = 8.31 Galaxy: Turbulent Ionized
Gas and Potential Stellar Feedback 600 Million Years after
the Big Bang. The Astrophysical Journal, 2023; 952 (1): 9 DOI:
10.3847/1538-4357/acd637 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230714114749.htm

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