An international team using ALMA, along with ESO’s Very Large Telescope and other telescopes, has discovered the true nature of a rare object in the distant Universe called a Lyman-alpha Blob. Up to now astronomers did not understand what made these huge clouds of gas shine so brightly, but ALMA has now seen two galaxies at the heart of one of these objects and they are undergoing a frenzy of star formation that is lighting up their surroundings. These large galaxies are in turn at the centre of a swarm of smaller ones in what appears to be an early phase in the formation of a massive cluster of galaxies. The two ALMA sources are expected to evolve into a single giant elliptical galaxy.
The release, images and videos are available on:
http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1632/
Kind regards,
The ESO Education and Public Outreach Department
21 September 2016
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16 September 2016: Media representatives are invited to attend a ceremony at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in northern Chile on 23 September 2016 to mark the inauguration of the La Silla solar ...
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16 September 2016: The winners of Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016 were announced at an award ceremony at the Royal Observatory Greenwich on 15 September 2016. The winning photographs will be ...
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