Scientists find galaxy that the Milky way

From a teleskopanlæg in the dry Atacama desert in Chile, where the weather conditions are particularly good for stjernekiggeri, an international team of astronomers has discovered a galaxy 12 billion light-years away.

part of the researchers are from the European Southern Observatorie (ESO), an international cooperation in which Denmark is at, which is in a press release has published a picture of the galaxy, dubbed SPT0418-47. It writes Science.dk, where you can also see an animation of the galaxy as it looked before gravity distorted the.

the Astronomers behind the discovery is excited about:

- the Result is quite unexpected, and it has important implications for our view of how galaxies evolve, says Simona Vegetti, forskergruppens leader at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany, in a press release, according to the Science.dk.

That the galaxy looks like a ring of fire is just an optical illusion, a side effect of the fact that the picture is taken through a so-called gravitational lens.

A gravitational lens is a phenomenon which occurs when light is bent by an object with a huge mass, and thus a large gravity. In this case, a galaxy that lies between us and SPT0418-47.

But gravitationslinsen has actually been a help. And with that the galaxy is 12 billion light-years away, it is extremely difficult to see with even the most powerful telescope.

Although gravitationslinsen distorts the image, it magnifies it namely also and gives a better view of the SPT0418-47.

the speed of Light also means that we see the galaxy as it looked 12 billion years ago, when the universe was very young. And it is here, the galaxy surprise:

- the Result here is a breakthrough within the field of research is galaxy formation. It shows that the structures that we see in a close spiral galaxies, and in our own milky way, were already in place, " explains Francesca Rizzo, ph.d student at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, in a press release, according to Science.dk.

the results of the Research, which follows, is published in the journal Nature. The results and more information can also be found on ESO's website.

Astronomers tell us, that we may be the only intelligent life in the universe

Space-jura: What happens if an astronaut pans another astronaut down in the room?

See the pictures: Skull-asteroid flying by Earth