Galaxies without stars: The problem of the missing hydrogen in the early Universe
Astronomers have been puzzled as to why they could not detect this cold
star-forming gas in the most distant, and hence older, regions of the
Universe. At such vast look-back times, astronomers expected the gas to
be much more abundant as it has yet to be consumed by star formation. Dr
Stephen Curran, from the Unive
rsity of
Sydney's School of Physics and CAASTRO – the ARC Centre for All-sky
Astrophysics – and Dr Matthew Whiting, from CSIRO Astronomy and Space
Science, have addressed this problem by devising a model that shows how
the supermassive black hole, lurking within the centre of each active
galaxy, is able to ionise all of the surrounding gas even in the very
largest galaxies. When hydrogen gas is in this state, where the electron
is ripped out of the atom, the gas it too agitated to allow the cloud
to collapse and form stars. Also, when ionised, it cannot be detected
through radio waves at 21-centimetres – the way cold star-forming gas is
normally found.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/
Galaxies without stars: The problem of the missing hydrogen in the early Universe
Astronomers have been puzzled as to why they could not detect this cold star-forming gas in the most distant, and hence older, regions of the Universe. At such vast look-back times, astronomers expected the gas to be much more abundant as it has yet to be consumed by star formation. Dr Stephen Curran, from the Unive
Astronomers have been puzzled as to why they could not detect this cold star-forming gas in the most distant, and hence older, regions of the Universe. At such vast look-back times, astronomers expected the gas to be much more abundant as it has yet to be consumed by star formation. Dr Stephen Curran, from the Unive
rsity of
Sydney's School of Physics and CAASTRO – the ARC Centre for All-sky
Astrophysics – and Dr Matthew Whiting, from CSIRO Astronomy and Space
Science, have addressed this problem by devising a model that shows how
the supermassive black hole, lurking within the centre of each active
galaxy, is able to ionise all of the surrounding gas even in the very
largest galaxies. When hydrogen gas is in this state, where the electron
is ripped out of the atom, the gas it too agitated to allow the cloud
to collapse and form stars. Also, when ionised, it cannot be detected
through radio waves at 21-centimetres – the way cold star-forming gas is
normally found.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/
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