8. An Expanding Galaxy City
Found Year: 2007.
It Was Discovered by: A team of astronomers
Where: COSMOS-AzTEC3
Something fascinating and enjoyable happened in 2011. Situated in a far-off galaxy cluster, the COSMOS-AzTEC3 galaxy cluster was found by a group of scientists using the Spitzer space observatory. The light from this galaxy cluster had to travel for even longer than 12 billion years to reach Earth.
Expanding Intergalactic City ©JPL-Caltech/Subaru/NASA/Wikimedia Commons
Astronomers believe that this very particular type of object, called a proto-cluster, evolved into current galaxy clusters, which are collections of galaxies locked together by a gravitational field. COSMOS-AzTEC3 was the farthest-flung proto-cluster discovered to that point. It has improved scientists’ comprehension of how galaxies have evolved and altered over the course of the cosmos.
zi ang