A team of scientists has discovered powerful radio-wavelength laser light coming from the farthest point in deep space found to date.
It is a type of massless cosmic object called a megamaser, whose light has traveled 5 billion light years to reach Earth. Astronomers who discovered it with South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope have named it Nkalakatha, an Isizulu word meaning great chief.
Astronomer Marcin Glowacki of the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research in Australia said: “It is impressive that, with just one night of observations, we have already found a record-breaking megamaser.”
When the data from the first night of the study came in, Glowacki and his team discovered hints of a very specific type of megamaser, bright at wavelengths amplified by stimulated hydroxyl molecules.
According to the researchers, hydroxyl megamasers are emitted by galaxies that are in the process of colliding with another galaxy, and are teeming with star formation as a result.
The source of the megamaser detected by Glowacki and his colleagues is precisely a galaxy called WISEA J033046.26-275518.3, now known as Nkalakatha, which is about 58,000 trillion kilometers away.
Astrophysicist Jeremy Darling, who is an expert on these phenomena and co-author of the study, explained: “When two galaxies like the Milky Way and Andromeda collide, light rays shoot out from the collision and can be seen at cosmological distances.”
Additionally, the expert pointed out that hydroxyl megamasers act as bright lights that express “here is a collision of galaxies that is forming new stars and feeding massive black holes.”
The team planned follow-up observations of this powerful laser light, and hope to find many more similar ones as the study continues.
“MeerKAT will likely double the known number of these rare phenomena,” said Darling, while stressing that “galaxies were thought to merge more frequently in the past, and the newly discovered hydroxyl megamasers will allow us to test this hypothesis.” concluded.
VTV / WIL/SC