In a 13 Nov 2017 press release by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), they have announced the discovery
of a spectacular starbursting merger of two massive galaxies during the early period of the universe when galaxies only first started to form.
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Originally Posted by ALMA
New observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have uncovered the never-before-seen close encounter between two astoundingly bright and spectacularly massive galaxies in the early Universe. These so-called hyper-luminous starburst galaxies are exceedingly rare at this epoch of cosmic history — near the time when galaxies first formed — and may represent one of the most-extreme examples of violent star formation ever observed.
Astronomers captured these two interacting galaxies, collectively known as ADFS-27, as they began the gradual process of merging into a single, massive elliptical galaxy. An earlier sideswiping encounter between the two helped to trigger their astounding bursts of star formation. Astronomers speculate that this merger may eventually form the core of an entire galaxy cluster. Galaxy clusters are among the most massive structures in the Universe.
“Finding just one hyper-luminous starburst galaxy is remarkable in itself. Finding two of these rare galaxies in such close proximity is truly astounding,” said Dominik Riechers, an astronomer at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and lead author on a paper appearing in the Astrophysical Journal. “Considering their extreme distance from Earth and the frenetic star-forming activity inside each, it’s possible we may be witnessing the most intense galaxy merger known to date.”
The ADFS-27 galaxy pair is located approximately 12.7 billion light-years from Earth in the direction of the Dorado constellation. At this distance, astronomers are viewing this system as it appeared when the Universe was only about one billion years old.
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Story here :-
http://www.almaobservatory.org/en/pr...rsting-merger/
The research is presented in a paper titled “
Rise of the titans: a dusty, hyper-luminous ‘870 µm riser’ galaxy at z~6,” by D. Riechers, et al., appearing in the Astrophysical Journal.
Abstract here. Subscription required for paper :-
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10...38-4357/aa8ccf