British scientists have uncovered an age-old mystery in astronomy, related to the most bizarre objects “manifesting” from the primordial universe.
Thanks to the superior observational capabilities of advanced telescopes, an increasing number of superstructures from the “infant” universe have been revealed to Earthlings.
Among these, ancient giant galaxies that bulge out like rugby balls, completely different from the disc shape of today’s galaxies, have puzzled astronomers for years.
However, a research team led by the University of Southampton (UK) has recently answered this long-standing question.
The Antenna Galaxy, an example of a galaxy formed by the collision and merger of two galaxies in the universe – (Photo: NASA/ESA).
Accordingly, the models they developed have revealed the mechanism that helps form these strange superstructures: intense collisions, but they must occur in a still young universe.
“Two disc galaxies collide, causing gas – the fuel for star formation – to sink into their cores, creating thousands of billions of new stars,” explained Dr. Anna Puglisi, a member of the research team.
These collisions could only have occurred about 8 to 12 billion years ago, when the universe was in a much more dynamic evolutionary phase than it is today.
The large cold gas flows generated by the collisions may have spurred the formation of some of the most bizarre star systems within the giant galaxy post-merger.
To reach this conclusion, the scientists employed a new technique to examine the light distribution from extremely bright and distant galaxies.
According to the authors, the data on these galaxies is the first tangible evidence showing that spherical structures formed directly through intense star formation bursts located at the cores of galaxies.
These bizarre galaxies also formed very quickly. Gas was violently drawn in, nourishing supermassive black holes and triggering star explosions, speeding up the star formation process by 10 to 100 times compared to the Milky Way, which contains Earth.
These rugby-shaped superstructures are no longer visible in today’s universe, which is now 13.8 billion years old and much calmer than in its early years.
