India-based telescope detects faint radio signal from an extremely distant galaxy
Radio signal
The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) which is located in India’s Pune, has detected a radio signal originating from an extremely distant galaxy.
Astronomers from McGill University in Canada and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) are behind the detection of these signals.The findings have been published in the scientific journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
With the signal travelling across the largest astronomical distance to reach us, this discovery marks a historical point in humanity’s astronomical journey.
“The astronomical distance over which such a signal has been picked up is the largest so far by a large margin. This is also the first confirmed detection of strong lensing of 21 cm emission from a galaxy”, said the IISc in a statement.
The signal reportedly originated from the atomic hydrogen of an ‘extremely’ distant galaxy. As per IISc, atomic hydrogen is the basic fuel required for star formation in a galaxy.
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As per the information available on the IISc website, “when hot ionised gas from the surrounding medium of a galaxy falls onto the galaxy, the gas cools and forms atomic hydrogen, which then becomes molecular hydrogen, and eventually leads to the formation of stars. Therefore, understanding the evolution of galaxies over cosmic time requires tracing the evolution of neutral gas at different cosmological epochs.”
The radio signal was reportedly extremely weak.
However, it is still significant due to the fact that it is nearly impossible to detect emissions from a distant galaxy using the technology which is currently available. The telescopes currently have limited sensitivity.
“Until now, the most distant galaxy detected using 21 cm emission was at redshift z=0.376, which corresponds to a look-back time – the time elapsed between detecting the signal and its original emission – of 4.1 billion years,” said IISc in its statement.
Here, ‘Redshift’ refers to the change in wavelength of the signal depending on the object’s location and movement. Furthermore, the greater the value of z, the farther the object is.
(With inputs from agencies)
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