As we try to peer into the deepest depths of space, we find more and more strange things – and now it appears that researchers have discovered something a little bit impossible. An international team found a galaxy cluster that’s far hotter and older than current theories allow. Essentially, this means that under our current best understanding of cosmology, the cluster is impossible. (Picture: Lingxiao Yuan)
This could completely change how we understand our early universe to have evolved. They think the reason this may have happened is because the cluster somehow got a head start thanks to a massive black hole in its heart. This means there is more to how galaxy clusters can evolve — perhaps even as a separate source beyond these gravitational forces. (Picture: Getty)
Lead author Dazhi Zhou said: ‘We didn’t expect to see such a hot cluster atmosphere so early in cosmic history. In fact, at first I was skeptical about the signal as it was too strong to be real. But after months of verification, we’ve confirmed this gas is at least five times hotter than predicted, and even hotter and more energetic than what we find in many present-day clusters.’ (Picture: Getty)
Co author professor Scott Chapman said: ‘This tells us that something in the early universe, likely three recently discovered supermassive black holes in the cluster, were already pumping huge amounts of energy into the surroundings and shaping the young cluster much earlier and more strongly than we thought.’ (Picture: Getty)
Conventional theories say that galaxy clusters gain energy as the gases inside are pulled together and squeezed due to intensifying gravitational forces, but the team found strange readings when they analysed observations by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in the Atacama desert in Chile. They found that the cluster dates back to around 12 billion years, is huge in size with a core that measures around half a million light-years across and spawns stars more than 5,000 times faster than our Milky Way. (Picture: Getty)
Mr Zhou said: ‘We want to figure out how the intense star formation, the active black holes and this overheated atmosphere interact, and what it tells us about how present galaxy clusters were built. How can all of this be happening at once in such a young, compact system?’ Professor Chapman added: ‘Understanding galaxy clusters is the key to understanding the biggest galaxies in the universe. These massive galaxies mostly reside in clusters, and their evolution is heavily shaped by the very strong environment of the clusters as they form, including the intracluster medium.’ (Picture: Getty)
Now, the researchers are hoping to figure out what allowed it to get so incredibly hot and the source of energy that defies our current models. The research suggests galaxy clusters evolve in a far more explosive manner than previously thought which has been helped by gravitational interactions between multiple supermassive black holes. (Picture: Getty)Add as preferred source
