Astronomers Discover a Massive Galaxy 'Shipyard' in the Distant Universe
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Summary: An international team of astronomers has reported the discovery of a structure thought to be a “proto-cluster” of galaxies on its way to developing into a galaxy supercluster. The observations of the proto-cluster, which is 11 billion light-years away, is believed to show the structure as it appeared when the universe was just over 2 billion years old, during an epoch when stars were produced at higher rates in certain favored locations in the cosmos.
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Sky region showing the PHz G237 proto-cluster and the identified galaxy members.
The left panel shows a multi-band image (11arcmin x 11arcmin) combining the
Herschel sub-millimetre image at 350micron in red (star formation tracer),
the Spitzer image at 3.6 micron in green (stellar mass tracer), and
the XMM-Newton X-ray image in blue (tracer of accreting supermassive black
holes). The region observed with the Subaru telescope is delimited by a
yellow dashed rectangle. Galaxy members identified through observations with
the Subaru telescope are shown as yellow diamonds, and the galaxies
identified spectroscopically are shown as light blue circles. The right
panel shows a zoom in the central 2.7arcmin x 1.9arcmin region of the
protocluster (red: 2.14 micron, green: 2.07 micron, blue: 1.25 micron).
Credits:
ESA/Herschel and XMM-Newton; NASA/Spitzer; NAOJ/Subaru; Large Binocular
Telescope; ESO/VISTA.
Numerical simulations of the cosmic web. If each galaxy on the sky is represented by a dot, then the sum total of all galaxies constitutes a kind of 3-D spider web shape called the cosmic web. The nodes of the cosmic web, depicted by the red regions, are the sites of proto-clusters such as G237.
Credit:
International Gemini Observatory-NOIRLab-NSF-AURA-G. L. Bryan-M. L. Norman
The two 8.4-m mirrors of the Large Binocular Telescope. The two LUCIs are at the bottom center of the picture (see close-up on the figure below). Credit: LBTO-E. Sacchetti
The two LUCI spectrographs — Large Binocular Telescope Near-infrared Spectroscopic Utility More information on the LBT instruments here.Credit: LBTO-E. Sacchetti.
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The two research papers are:
The work reported here used different facilities around the world and in space:
- Subaru Telescope in Hawaii. MOIRCS: Multi-Object Infrared Camera and Spectrograph.
- Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona. Operated by different universities and research institutions in the USA, Germany, Italy. LUCI spectrograph — Large Binocular Telescope Near-infrared Spectroscopic Utility with Camera and Integral Field Unit for Extragalactic Research.
- Planck, an ESA mission dedicated to cosmology and the cosmic microwave background, observing the whole sky in the radio and sub-millimeter light
- Herschel, an ESA observatory dedicated to the cold and far-away universe, observing the far-infrared and sub-millimeter light
- Spitzer, a NASA great observatory observing in the infrared.
- “A Planck-selected dusty protocluster at z=2.16 associated with a strong over-density of massive Hα emitting galaxies”, authored by Yusei Koyama, Maria del Carmen Polletta, Ichi Tanaka, Tadayuki Kodama, Hervé Dole, Geneviève Soucail, Brenda Frye, Matt Lehnert, Marco Scodeggio, 2021, MNRAS, 501, L1, Abstract here and publication here.
- Spectroscopic observations of PHz G237.01+42.50 : a galaxy protocluster at z=2.16 in the Cosmos field”, authored by M. Polletta, G. Soucail, H. Dole, M. D. Lehnert, E. Pointecouteau, G. Vietri, M. Scodeggio, L. Montier, Y. Koyama, G. Lagache, B. L. Frye, F. Cusano, and M. Fumana, 2021, A&A, in press. The preprint is available at : https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.04396
The work reported here used different facilities around the world and in space:
- Subaru Telescope in Hawaii. MOIRCS: Multi-Object Infrared Camera and Spectrograph.
- Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona. Operated by different universities and research institutions in the USA, Germany, Italy. LUCI spectrograph — Large Binocular Telescope Near-infrared Spectroscopic Utility with Camera and Integral Field Unit for Extragalactic Research.
- Planck, an ESA mission dedicated to cosmology and the cosmic microwave background, observing the whole sky in the radio and sub-millimeter light
- Herschel, an ESA observatory dedicated to the cold and far-away universe, observing the far-infrared and sub-millimeter light
- Spitzer, a NASA great observatory observing in the infrared.
Other links
- INAF Press Release (Italian)
- CNRS Press Release (French)
- Subaru Press Release (Japanese)
About LBT
The largest optical telescope in operation, the Large Binocular Telescope uses two 8.4-meter primary meters which offer the light gathering power of an 11.7m mirror and, when used in interferometric mode, the resolving power of an 22.7m telescope. A sophisticated Adaptive Optics System correcting for atmospheric disturbances enables LBT to generate crisp and clear images of the universe. Operated by the University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson, Arizona, USA, the LBT is an international collaboration of the UA, Italy (INAF: Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica), Germany (LBTB: LBT Beteiligungsgesellschaft), and The Ohio State University (OSU) representing OSU, the University of Minnesota, the University of Virginia, and the University of Notre Dame. More information: http://www.lbto.org/