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03-04-2024, 11:36 PM
From: Discover Magazine: Astronomers Accidentally Find A Galaxy That Hasn’t Birthed Any Stars
Subtitled : (A typo sent an enormous radio telescope to the wrong patch of sky — where it discovered an invisible galaxy-sized cloud of hydrogen gas.)
This is unexpected.
... and a bit funny that it was found "accidentally."
It was an effort between the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and the Nançay Radio Telescope in France... surveying faint galaxies. But it seems a user error entered into the GBT made it look 'elsewhere.' The GBT ended up finding ...
... a spiral-galaxy-sized cloud of gas — a couple billion Suns’ worth — rotating at about the same speed as the Milky Way. But surveys in visible light showed nothing. “We went back and said, ‘All right, well, what did we detect?’” said O’Neil. “And what we actually found was there was nothing there. … So that means what we might have here — might — is the discovery of a primordial galaxy,” a galaxy of gas that is too spread out for its gravity to pull stars together.
I never imagined that such mind-bogglingly immense accumulations of gas could even exist without somehow succumbing to some gravitational forces that would make it coalesce. But there it might be.... might.
![[Image: hydrogen-gas-j061352.jpg?fm=jpg&fl=progr...3&fit=fill]](https://images.ctfassets.net/cnu0m8re1exe/6uPPQE7rCGr8CBEo0yUiik/855f009df85d5ae09b52c4bdfafb37fe/hydrogen-gas-j061352.jpg?fm=jpg&fl=progressive&w=660&h=433&fit=fill)
Remember... "artists rendition"
Subtitled : (A typo sent an enormous radio telescope to the wrong patch of sky — where it discovered an invisible galaxy-sized cloud of hydrogen gas.)
This is unexpected.
... and a bit funny that it was found "accidentally."
It was an effort between the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and the Nançay Radio Telescope in France... surveying faint galaxies. But it seems a user error entered into the GBT made it look 'elsewhere.' The GBT ended up finding ...
... a spiral-galaxy-sized cloud of gas — a couple billion Suns’ worth — rotating at about the same speed as the Milky Way. But surveys in visible light showed nothing. “We went back and said, ‘All right, well, what did we detect?’” said O’Neil. “And what we actually found was there was nothing there. … So that means what we might have here — might — is the discovery of a primordial galaxy,” a galaxy of gas that is too spread out for its gravity to pull stars together.
I never imagined that such mind-bogglingly immense accumulations of gas could even exist without somehow succumbing to some gravitational forces that would make it coalesce. But there it might be.... might.
Remember... "artists rendition"
