Light leaking from a distant galaxy hints at a cosmic makeover’s origins

Disir

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Sep 30, 2011
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A leaky galaxy might be offering up clues about a vast cosmic makeover foisted on the universe during its youth.

Within about a billion years after the Big Bang, something stripped nearly all of the hydrogen atoms in the universe of their electrons. This “reionization” puzzles astronomers, who can’t account for all of the energy needed to make such a sweeping change (SN: 2/6/17).

A galaxy dubbed the Sunburst Arc might help. It appears to be blasting ionizing ultraviolet radiation through a small hole (or holes) carved out of the gas that permeates the galaxy, researchers report in the Nov. 8 Science. Similar channels in the earliest generation of galaxies could have provided an escape hatch for harsh light to zap intergalactic hydrogen.
Light leaking from a distant galaxy hints at a cosmic makeover’s origins

This is really cool.
 

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