Scientists spot two blazing quasars merging together in Cosmic Dawn 900 million years after Big Bang
An artist’s concept of a galaxy with a brilliant quasar at its centre.
Scientists have caughttwo blazing quasars- galaxies powered by supermassive black holes-in the act of merging in the Cosmic Dawn 900 million years after the Big Bang. A report by ScienceAlert on Tuesday (June 18) said that it was the first collidingquasar pair that scientists found.
A time of intense cosmic formation in the wake of the Big Bang, this period should be positively riddled with merging galaxies, but previous searches have only turned up loners, the report said.
Astronomer Yoshiki Matsuoka from Japan'sEhime University said that the existence of mergingquasars in the Epoch of Reionization has been anticipated for a long time."It has now been confirmed for the first time,"Matsuoka added.
One of the brightest objects in Universe
Quasars are one of the brightest objects in the Universe. Scientists believe that quasarscan form when two galaxies merge, a process that results in a higher concentration of material in the galactic centre.
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The discovery of thetwo blazing quasars was accidental, the report pointed out.
Matsuoka and his colleagueswere poring over data collected using the Subaru Telescope when they found something unusual. The astronomer said that while screening images of quasar candidates, he noticed two similarand extremely red sources next to each other.
Separation by gap of 40,000 light-years
A pair of red blobs side-by-side could mean anything. ScienceAlert said that for example, the lightof a single object can be split and duplicated by the gravitational warping of space-time between the source and the viewer, causing a single object to look like two or more.
So, scientistsconducted follow-up observations using the Subaru Telescope and Gemini North, as well as the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array.
The observations revealedthat not only were the objects real and very far awaybut were right next to each other, separated by a gap of 40,000 light years.
The team also found that a significant proportion of the light emitted by the galaxies is from star formationand that a bridge of gas connects them, revealing that the two were in the process of merging.
(With inputs from agencies)