Deep Astronomy - The Most Distant Galaxy Ever Measured

0:00It's the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast, coming in 3, 2, 1.

0:30Only 600 million years after the Big Bang, the universe was in a fog.

0:40This is what the universe looked like before any galaxies had formed. Here, there are no luminous objects, no stars, and certainly no galaxies. When the universe cooled down after the Big Bang, electrons and protons combined to form neutral hydrogen gas. At this time in our history, no photons could pass through. The universe was opaque.

1:08This dark age ended when the first stars formed and their intense ultraviolet radiation pierced the veil by splitting the hydrogen atoms back into electrons and protons. In this simulation, the dark areas are opaque and the blue areas translucent. The fog lifted when stars were born.

1:32These hot, young stars blew away the cosmic fog of hydrogen gas with ultraviolet radiation, and these stars formed into the very first galaxies, clearing the way for their photons to begin their long, arduous journey across creation. The first galaxies ever to form lifted the universal fog forever. The era of reionization had begun. On October 19th, 2010,

2:04astronomers announced the measurement of one of the first galaxies ever to form in the universe, and it formed during this period.

2:14Sensitive instruments on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope recorded a spectrum of a galaxy first imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope in January of 2010. Starting with a new ultra-deep field image taken in January 2010 with the upgraded Wide Field Camera 3, which is sensitive to the infrared, astronomers looked at every faint galaxy within it. These faint galaxies were among the first in existence.

2:44From these faint smudges, candidates for further study with the ESO Symphony Spectrograph were selected. These galaxies were so faint, it wasn't at all clear if a spectrum could be obtained.

2:59Lying in a very obscure region of the ultra-deep field, the ESO astronomers pointed the Very Large Telescope Spectrograph at one of the faintest objects they could see in the image. Early in time, this galaxy was once exceedingly bright in the ultraviolet, but by the time its light traversed the observable universe to land on our detectors, its photons have been diminished to a faint red glow.

3:28The feeble red light from this galaxy was collected for over 16 long hours, resulting in a spectrum with a measured redshift of 8.6. This galaxy was alive 13.1 billion years ago when the cosmos was still in its infancy, and its redshift is the largest ever recorded anywhere in the universe.

4:02Looking at galaxies this remote is very difficult, but they are crucial to our understanding of how galaxies came into existence. This observation of a galaxy so early in the lifetime of the universe came as a surprise. Galaxies, it seems, have existed much earlier than was previously thought.

4:25This distant galaxy not only helped clear the early hydrogen fog blanketing the universe, it is now also helping to clear the fog of ignorance in our understanding of the earliest period of existence.

4:44You are listening to the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast.

4:55Cool. The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. Audio post-production is by me, Richard Drumm. Project management is by Aviva Yamani. And hosting is donated by LibSyn.com. This content is released under a Creative Commons attribution, non-commercial 4.0 international license.

5:25Please share what you love, but don't sell what's free. This show is made possible thanks to the generous donations of people like you. Please consider supporting our show on patreon.com forward slash CosmoQuestX and get access to bonus content. Without your passion and contribution, we won't be able to share the stories that inspire the world. We invite you to join our community of storytellers and share your voice with the listeners worldwide.

5:55As we wrap up today's episode, we're looking forward to unraveling more stories from the universe. With every new discovery from ground-based and space-based observatories and each milestone in space exploration, we come closer to understanding the cosmos and our place within it. Until next time, let the stars guide your curiosity. the stars. See you!

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