National Astronomical Observatory of Japan

ALMA Spots Monstrous Baby Galaxies Cradled in Dark Matter

| Science

This press release was issued by The University of Tokyo on December 5th, 2015 in Japanese. English version is translated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.

Astronomers discovered a nest of monstrous baby galaxies 11.5 billion light-years away using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The young galaxies seem to reside at the junction of gigantic filaments in a web of dark matter. These findings are important for understanding how monstrous galaxies like these are formed and how they evolve in to huge elliptical galaxies.

A visualization of the proto-Great Wall and monstrous galaxies.
Figure: A visualization of the proto-Great Wall and monstrous galaxies. Monstrous galaxies are thought to preferentially be born at the centers of the web like structures formed by young galaxies. Original Size (4.1MB)

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