Astronomers have discovered hundreds of thousands of galaxies previously unknown to science, according to several new studies.
This gigantic data set will allow researchers to better understand the birth and growth of supermassive black holes, the evolution of collisions between clusters of galaxies and many other cosmic events, according to members of the scientific team that made this discovery.
This team consists of more than 200 astronomers from 18 countries who jointly analyze data collected during the first stage of the sky survey conducted using the Low Frequency Array radio telescope network (LOFAR), which is managed by the Netherlands Institute of Radio Astronomy (known as ASTRON). Most of the LOFAR telescopes are located in the Netherlands, but the system also covers many European countries, including Germany, France and the United Kingdom.
Researchers discovered and mapped 300,000 radio sources, almost all of which, as scientists point out, are extremely distant galaxies. The main source of the observed radio emission are jets of rapidly moving material moving away from the SMBH located in the centers of these galaxies.
These new observations also provide a deeper insight into collision processes between clusters of galaxies. These giant collisions lead to the acceleration of particles in space to ultrahigh speeds, resulting in the formation of radio emission zones of a length of millions of light years.
However, this is by no means all of the results obtained by researchers during this work.
The LOFAR system shows us that in some cases clusters of galaxies that are not in the process of merging can also emit such radiation, although its intensity level is much lower — so low that we could not register it earlier.
This discovery tells us that in addition to collisions between clusters of galaxies, there are other cosmic events that can lead to the acceleration of particles to ultrahigh speeds.
-Annalisa Bonafede, a member of a research group from the University of Bologna, Italy.
300,000 new distant galaxies discovered
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