Recent Comments

    Galactic Space Laser tagged posts

    Astronomers Detect ‘Galactic Space Laser’

    April 8, 2022, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Artist’s impression of a hydroxyl maser. Inside a galaxy merger are hydroxyl molecules, composed of one atom of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. When one molecule absorbs a photon at 18cm wavelength, it emits two photons of the same wavelength. When molecular gas is very dense, typically when two galaxies merge, this emission gets very bright and can be detected by radio telescopes such as the MeerKAT. © IDIA/LADUMA using data from NASA/StSci/SKAO/MolView

    A powerful radio-wave laser, called a ‘megamaser’, has been observed by the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa. The record-breaking find is the most distant megamaser of its kind ever detected, at about five billion light years from Earth.

    The light from the megamaser has travelled 58 thousand billion billion (58 followed by 21 z...

    Read More