Indian And Canadian Scientists Capture Radio Signal From The Most Distant Galaxy
Scientists from India and Canada recently detected a radio signal coming from a galaxy situated nearly nine billion light years away! Their findings suggest that the signal would have been emitted when the universe was just 4.9 billion-years-old, even older than our solar system that was formed about 4.5 billion years ago.
According to Arnab Chakraborty, the study's co-author and a post-doctoral researcher at McGill University, the detection of this signal is "the equivalent to a look-back in time of 8.8 billion years."
How was this signal captured?
In the study, scientists outlined how researchers captured the most far-off signal ever in a specific radio wavelength known as the 21 centimetre line or the hydrogen line. This helps scientists peek into galactic structures.
"A galaxy emits different kinds of radio signals," said Chakraborty. "Until now, it¡¯s only been possible to capture this particular signal from a galaxy nearby, limiting our knowledge to those galaxies closer to Earth."
The distant galaxy is known as SDSSJ0826+5630. Usually, such signals are too faint to be detected by radio telescopes. It was due to a naturally-occurring phenomenon called gravitational lensing that scientists captured a faint signal from a "record-breaking distance."
Also read:?Strange 'Structures' Spotted In A Bright Black Hole Are Shooting Radio Emissions
Nirupam Roy, the study's co-author and an associate professor of physics at the Indian Institute of Science said that "gravitational lensing magnifies the signal coming from a distant object to help us peer into the early universe."
"In this specific case, the signal is bent by the presence of another massive body, another galaxy, between the target and the observer. This effectively results in the magnification of the signal by a factor of 30, allowing the telescope to pick it up," Roy explained.
Also read:?New Image Shows Mysterious 'Odd Radio Circles' That Are Bigger Than Milky Way
The signal was captured using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope that is situated in Maharashtra. Scientists claim that their findings prove how faint signals from faraway galaxies may be detected using low-frequency radio telescopes with the help of gravitational lensing.?
The findings were published in the journal?Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.??
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