Researchers have discovered what they believe is the most distant astronomical object yet discovered: HD1, a candidate galaxy estimated to be regarding 13.5 billion light-years away. This is 100 million light-years away from the most distant galaxy currently known, GN-z11. HD1 glows brightly in ultraviolet light, indicating that the galaxy is teeming with activity. As a result, scientists speculate that it might be a star galaxy, or a galaxy that is generating stars at a rapid rate. However, subsequent examination revealed that the candidate galaxy was creating over 100 stars each year, 10 times the rate of typical starburst galaxies.
The discovery was made by an international team of astronomers, including experts from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian.
The team of researchers has two suggestions. First, HD1 can create stars at an incredible rate, and might be home to Population III stars, the universe’s first stars, which have never been seen before. Second, HD1 might also be home to a supermassive black hole 100 million times the mass of our Sun.
This discovery was reported in the Astrophysical Journal (ApJ). Researchers have begun to hypothesise regarding what a galaxy is in a companion report published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS).
Answering questions regarding the nature of a very distant source was equivalent to “guessing the nationality of a ship from the flag you are flying, while it is far from shore, and the ship is in the midst of a thick and stormy fog,” Fabio Paccucci, lead author of the MNRAS study and co-author of the discovery paper on ApJ, said in a statement. . Bakuchi said some colors and shapes of the flag can be seen, but not all. In the end, it is a long process of studying and weeding out unreasonable scenarios.
Regarding Population 3 of the stars, Bakuchi said the first group of stars in the universe were much more massive, brighter, and hotter than today’s stars. If we assume that the stars created in HD1 are these early stars, or III stars, then the galaxy’s features can be better described.
HD1 was discovered following nearly 1,200 hours of observation using the Subaru telescope, the Vesta telescope, the British Infrared Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope.
