Astronomers have monitored the farthest galaxy ever discovered, 13.5 billion light-years away from Earth, according to a study published Friday, and its results must be confirmed through more advanced observations.
After more than 1,200 hours, during which the sky was observed through four telescopes, “HD1” was observed, a very bright object “its red color matches the characteristics of a galaxy 13.5 billion light-years away,” according to what the discoverer of the galaxy Yuichi Harikaneh explains in a statement published on the sidelines of the study. The Royal Astronomical Society.
Additional data collected by the ALMA observatory in Chile confirmed the results of the new study, as the “HD1” galaxy is 100 million years farther than the “GN-z11” galaxy, which until the discovery of “HD1” was the farthest galaxy ever.
The HD1 galaxy was thus formed 300 million years after the Big Bang, the period when the universe began, and the light it emits took 13.5 billion years to reach Earth.
In order to determine the age of the galaxy, scientists measured the redshift of its original light. As the universe expands, the distance between objects expands. As we go back in time, the distance between objects increases and their light extends more, transforming into wavelengths that become increasingly red.
“When I spotted the color red, I got goosebumps,” says Yochi Harikan, an astrophysicist at the University of Tokyo and one of the authors of the study published in the Astrophysical Journal.
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