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Old 14-11-2017, 08:42 AM
gary
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Cool ALMA captures starbursting merger of two massive galaxies in the early Universe

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.
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
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Old 14-11-2017, 09:06 AM
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Thanks for taking the time to post Gary
alex
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Old 14-11-2017, 09:32 AM
gary
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Originally Posted by xelasnave View Post
Thanks for taking the time to post Gary
alex
Thank you Alex.

The credit goes to all the people who work at ALMA. ALMA keeps laying
these golden eggs of discovery for us to marvel at.
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Old 14-11-2017, 06:25 PM
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Yes.
Yet in this new age we enjoy one sortta demands a new discovery on a daily basis...well you seem to be finding good stuff regular.

alex
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Old 16-11-2017, 09:26 PM
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Weltevreden SA (Dana)
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This sim goves us a good idea of what it looked like

We can get a better handle on the look & feel of accretion events like this in this Illustris sim:

http://www.illustris-project.org/mov..._adiabatic.mp4

The sim starts at z=10, roughly 600 million years after the BB. The left panel shows the timeline evolution of adiabatic heating (density variations at constant temperature) and the right side shows the combined effects of gas cooling, primordial star formation, and AGN or active galactic nuclei. AGNs mix newly formed and chemically enriched gas with the older primordial gas, thus seeding the universe with the complex elements that eventually build up into structures like us. The words "gas cooling" above may seem odd given that what we see in this sim reflects the effects of enormous system-wide heating via star formation. However, in order for gas to get dense enough for stars to form, the gas has to cool down from its primordial extreme kinetic activity (kinetic energy is considered "heat") of millions of degrees K. The only way it can do that is by radiating away the energy excess into space as space itself expands. The whole process begins slowly but by the midpoint of the sim you can see what messy places galaxies can be as they eat each other alive.

If you Google phrases like "simulations of galaxy formation" you will be astonished at the number of accurate visualizations which the professional astronomy community creates to show us visually what they know mathematically.

=Dana in S Africa
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Old 16-11-2017, 09:42 PM
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Whew. Thanks for sharing Dana!
(and Gary!)
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