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The U.S. National Radio Observatory has discovered MAMBO-9, the most distant star-forming galaxy observed by telescopes from Earth. To explain how far away it is, it would take 13 billion years for light to reach Earth. Surprisingly, however, MAMBO-9 cannot borrow the power of celestial phenomenon known as a gravitational lens and is said to have been observed directly.
MAMBO-9 was actually first observed 10 years ago by the Max-Planck Millimeter Bolometer (MAMBO) installed in the Spanish IRAM30m telescope. However, it is said that at that time, the distance from the Earth could not be clearly identified due to the low light intensity. Astronomers knew it was far, but they didn’t know how far it was.
What made this possible was the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) located in the Chilean Andes. According to a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, MAMBO-9 is found to be 1.3 billion light-years away from Earth.
Considering that the universe was created by the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, you can imagine how surprising the discovery of MAMBO-9 was. Since MAMBO-9 was formed only 970 million years after the Big Bang, it is a reflection of how the universe feels at this time, the beginning of the universe.
Some previously discovered ancient galaxies such as SPT0311-58 formed 780 million years after the Big Bang. What’s great about this discovery, as previously stated, is that the MAMBO-9 is the farthest and oldest dust-covered galaxy observed directly with a telescope.
Giant star-forming galaxies covered in dust produce stars equivalent to thousands of solar masses per year. Most of these giant star factories were formed after the universe reached a certain maturity level, but some were observed less than 1 billion years after the Big Bang, such as SPT0311-58. Given that it appeared quite early, one can imagine that dusty galaxies played an important role in the development of early space.
The study also revealed the total mass of gas and dust contained in MAMBO-9. According to this, MAMBO-9 contains gas and dust that is ten times the mass of all stars in the Milky Way. We also believe that the MAMBO-9 catalog, discovered 10 years ago, is equally interesting and there will be a lot of information that has not yet been confirmed by spectroscopy. Astronomers are expressing their intention to use ALMA in the future to discover similarly old and distant galaxies, find common ground at that time, and understand how mass gas and dust were obtained immediately after the Big Bang. Related information can be found here .
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