EGS77 tagged posts

Cosmic Bubbles reveal the First Stars

oir2001a – Rendition of the galaxy group EGS77
This rendition shows ionized bubbles formed by three galaxies in galaxy cluster EGS77. 
Credit: V. Tilvi et al./National Science Foundation’s Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory/KPNO/AURA

Astronomers detect first stars ‘bubbling out’ from the cosmic dark ages. Astronomers using the Mayall telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, a program of NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, have identified several overlapping bubbles of hydrogen gas ionized by the stars in early galaxies, a mere 680 million years after the Big Bang. This is the earliest direct evidence from the period when the first generation of stars formed and began reionizing the hydrogen gas that permeated the Universe.

There was a peri...

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