WASHINGTON: Astronomers are baffled by a recent discovery of ‘fluffiest’ ever galaxies nearly as wide as our Milky Way galaxy some 300 million light-years away because of their puffed up nature. Researchers are looking for answers to questions about the origins of these galaxies and whether they were once successful star nurseries that ended up like the way they are now.
The discovery was made by an international team of researchers led by Pieter van Dokkum at Yale University using the W. M. Keck Observatory and published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. The surprising bit about these galaxies is that despite their enormous size like our Milky Way, they only pack 1 per cent as many stars.
Astronomers combined results from one of the world’s smallest telescopes as well as the largest telescope on Earth to confirm their latest discovery. Using the Dragonfly Telephoto Array and its 14-centimeter state of the art telephoto lens cameras, the researchers produced digital images of the very faint, diffuse objects. Then using the Keck Observatory’s 10-meter Keck I telescope and its Low Resolution Imaging Spectrograph, they separated the light of one of the objects into colors that diagnose its composition and distance.
Researchers reveal that the distance was what seal the deal for them. The data from Keck Observatory showed the diffuse “blobs” are very large and very far away, about 300 million light-years, rather than small and close by. The blobs can now safely be called Ultra Diffuse Galaxies (UDGs).
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