Ultra-bright early galaxies may be less common than we think

Ultra-bright galaxies in the early universe may be less common than initially thought, new research conducted using the Hubble Space Telescope has found.

Researchers led by a University of Melbourne team and the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions used Hubble to observe two galaxies thought to be so distant that we see them more than 13 billion years back in time when the universe was young.

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Credit: R Livermore (University of Melbourne), M Trenti (University of Melbourne), and the BoRG team. Based on data taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope

The colour composite image on the left is taken in near-infrared light and shows the location of the two candidate galaxies initially thought to be at a distance of more than 13.2 billion light-years from Earth. The close-up images on the right show a zoom-in of the two galaxies. The top row uses data from the initial discovery, while the bottom row shows the colours using additional, more precise observations. The powerful Wide Field Camera 3 on board NASA/ESA's Hubble Space Telescope initially discovered the two galaxies in a random-pointing survey called BoRG (Brightest of Reionizing Galaxies Survey). This image is located in the Pisces constellation and covers an area about 170 times smaller than that of the full moon. Follow-up observations with the same camera refined the near-infrared colours, clearly identifying galaxy "a" as an impostor that is only about 9 billion light years away rather than 13, while galaxy "b" colours, and hence its distance, have been confirmed by the new observations. Galaxy "b" is observed when the Universe was about 600 million years old, and it emits more light than the Milky Way, our own galaxy, while probably containing about a tenth of the stars.

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NASA's WISE, infrared survey explorer, captured the breathtaking photos of the super-luminous galaxy back in 2010, but scientists have finally found it within the haystack of data this observer collects.

The galaxy has been labelled J-224607 and it's light traveled 12.5 billion years before reaching the craft.

Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory believe the brilliant glow seen at the galaxies' center is caused by an evolving super-massive black hole capturing all the gas within it's grasp.

Extremely luminous early galaxies – such as those simulated here in infrared light – established the structure of galactic clusters observed today by sub-millimeter wavelength telescopes.