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Astronomers discover rare ' fossil cloud ' that arose minutes after the Big Bang


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Astronomers discover rare ' fossil cloud ' that arose minutes after the Big Bang

It is only the third time that space archaeologists find such a perfectly conserved nebula.

 
 

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A simulation of galaxies and gas in the universe. Image via the Keck Observatory

 

astronomers from the Keck observatory in Hawaii have discovered an incredibly rare ' fossil cloud ' of pure hydrogen, which arose a few minutes after the Big Bang. According to astronomers, this is only the third fossil cloud ever discovered. An important discovery, as these unaffected gas clouds astronomers give a pure view of matter from the early universe.

Researchers believe that the hydrogen in the cloud arose a few minutes after the Big bang and somehow remained protected for nearly 1.5 billion years against metals from exploding stars. This makes this space fossil extremely rare. By studying the spread of these fossil clouds, researchers may be able to better understand how heavy metals spread over the early universe. They can find out why some gas CLOUDSS eventually formed stars and galaxies, while others did not.

 

"Wherever we look in the universe, the gas is polluted by the waste of exploding stars," says Fred Robert, PhD student at the Swinburne University of Technology and lead author of the report on the fossil, in a statement "This cloud, on the other hand, looks utterly spotless."


From a prior publication of the paper it appears that Robert and his colleagues have discovered the cloud using the Spectrograph and spectrometer of the immense Keck telescope. These instruments are used to analyze the light spectrum of celestial bodies, allowing specific properties, such as their temperature and chemical composition, to be determined. With these characteristics the researchers can then make a unique ' fingerprint ' of each celestial body.

In The case of this fossil, the astronomers have analyzed a quasar (an abbreviation for quasi-stellar radio source) that was behind the cloud. Quasars are incredibly bright, star-like objects that recognize the gigantic fry energy they emit. In principle, quasars are superheavy black holes, which give a lot of light and radiation because all the matter is drawn towards the black hole. By analysing how the energy of the quasar moved through the cloud, Robert and his colleagues could see that this is probably a very rare fossil from just after the Big Bang.

 

"If there are any heavy elements in it, that quantity must be less than one-tienduizendste part of what we see in our sun," says Robert. "That's extremely little. The most plausible explanation is that it is really a remnant of the Big Bang. "

 

 

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