Illustration of a galaxy.

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Pixabay / lumina_obscura

The European LOFAR radio telescope has revealed images of unprecedented precision of tens of thousands of star-forming galaxies in the "young" Universe.

This is the second delivery of data from this network of some 70,000 antennas spread over ten European countries.

These observe particles circulating at a speed close to light, accelerated by events such as the explosion of stars, collisions of galaxy clusters or the activity of black holes.

To distances, and therefore to ages, when the Universe was still young, when it was only a billion years old.

Proud to have worked with an international team of astronomers to create the most sensitive images of the Universe ever taken at low radio frequencies✨.

The use of #LOFAR reveals images of Milky Way like galaxies in the most distant parts of the Universe https://t.co/k5lz8tfoeD pic.twitter.com/DJWTuCZYqy

- Low Frequency Array (@LOFAR) April 7, 2021

Longer exposure time

"The scientific heart of the project is the study of the formation of galaxies and the functioning of black holes in their centers", explains Cyril Tasse, of the Paris-PSL Observatory.

The astronomer is one of the authors of the 14 studies devoted to this unpublished LOFAR dataset, collected in a special issue of the journal

Astronomy and Astrophysics

, published Wednesday.

The telescope focused on a wide field of the northern sky, with the equivalent of an exposure time ten times longer than that which allowed the delivery of its first cosmic map, in 2019. “Which gives a lot of results thinner, like a photo taken in the dark, where the longer you pose, the more you can distinguish things ”that are difficult to see, specifies Cyril Tasse.

"It's really the fireworks"

Around 3 billion years after the Big Bang, "it's really fireworks", with a "peak in star formation and black hole activity" in young galaxies, adds the scientist.

LOFAR observes the phenomenon indirectly, by detecting cosmic radiation - the energy given off by the galaxy - which is accelerated by supernovas, those stars which explode when they die.

"When a galaxy forms stars, lots of stars explode at the same time, which accelerates the particles at very high energy, and the galaxies begin to radiate" in this range of radio waves observed by LOFAR, explains the astronomer .

These data, coupled with others, should make it possible to better understand the evolution of the Universe.

While waiting for the launch of new radio means to bring this observation back to the early youth of the Universe.

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