CANBERRA, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- Australian astronomers have detected a seismic wave forming in an ancient galaxy in a world-first.
In a study published on Friday, a team from the Australian National University (ANU) used the state-of-the-art Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile to look at BRI 1335-0417, a faraway galaxy more than 12 billion years old, in great detail, enabling greater understanding of how it formed.
First detected in 2021 by the ALMA, BRI 1335-0417 is the oldest and farthest known spiral galaxy in the universe.
A spiral galaxy is a galaxy that typically has a rotating disc with spiral "arms" extending from a dense center.
Using ALMA, ANU researchers were able to capture the motion of gas around BRI 1335-0417 and the formation of a seismic wave, a world-first for an early spiral galaxy.
Takafumi Tsukui, lead author of the research from the ANU College of Science, said the team was seeking to discover how BRI 1335-0417 is fuelling its star formation.
"Specifically, we were interested in how gas was moving into and throughout the galaxy," he said in a media release.
"Gas is a key ingredient for forming stars and can give us important clues about how a galaxy is actually fuelling its star formation."
They found that new gas is either streaming into the galaxy or that it is coming into contact with smaller galaxies, providing fuel for star formation.
Because of the vast distance between Earth and the BRI 1335-0417, images seen through the telescope in the present day are from when the universe was only 10 percent of its current age. ■
