Gigantic clouds of carbon around the galaxies, primordial: it is the oldest pollution in the Universe

Gigantic clouds of gaseous carbon extended for a radius of over thirty thousand light-years around galaxies in the primordial distance of about 13 billion light-years from Earth. Has discovered an international team of researchers, including the group of cosmology of the Scuola Normale superiore, Pisa led by Andrew Ferrara .

Since no one theoretical study predicted the existence of these enormous 'cocoons' of carbon around the first galaxies, the discovery might require a substantial revision of our understanding of cosmic evolution".

The group used data collected by the Alma (Atacama Large Millimeter Array), the most powerful radio telescope in the world, consisting of 66 antennas located in the Andes mountains of Chile. "The data - explain the Normal show for the first time that carbon atoms produced in stars primordial have been transported to great distances by powerful winds in the galaxy, 'polluting' the space between the galaxies.

"The amount and the extension of the rich gas and carbon expelled from these galaxies - underlines Andrea Ferrara, professor of Cosmology - far exceeds our expectations and theoretical models are not at the moment able to explain this evidence. It is necessary to incorporate new physical processes into the simulations, cosmological we are conducting in order to interpret this surprising discovery".

"We looked at all the archive of Alma - adds the astronomer Seiji Fuijmoto of the university of Copenhagen and phd in Tokyo as well as the first author of the article published on the international journal Astrophysical Journal and collected all the data that contain the radio signals by the carbon ions in the most remote galaxies that we know of. This technique allowed us then to obtain the result and its implications".

heavy Elements such as carbon and oxygen were not produced by the Big Bang, but formed later by nuclear fusion in stars but is not yet clear how these elements spread then in the Universe. For Rob Ivison, scientific director of the European Southern Observatory (Eso), "supernova explosions expel the heavy elements have formed before: jets of energy and radiation from supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies could help to carry the carbon out of the galaxies and throughout the Universe". Data crossing Alma with those of the Hubble telescope, concludes dr. Masami Ouchi of the national astronomical Observatory of Japan, "we realized that the clouds of carbon observed are almost five times larger than the galaxies from which they were expelled". © Reproduction reserved