HONG KONG: Back to the Future’s 30th anniversary has resulted in many speculations about the modern technology the film was able to predict. The discovery of 252 dwarf galaxies couldn’t have had a better timing, just like Doc Brown and Marty McFly, it enabled astronomers to look back into the past to see how the early universe was formed, approximately 600 to 900 million years after the Big Bang.
The discovery was published in the Astrophysical Journal where the researchers described how the light discharged by these dwarf galaxies played a role in the epoch of reionization. This is a period of time in the early universe when the dense hydrogen gas that covered the universe started to dissolve and when ultraviolet light began to travel to distant areas without being blocked by the hydrogen fog.
In the paper, the research team led by Hakim Atek, described that the dwarf galaxies were crucial in keeping the universe clear. The researchers also explained that the reionization period concluded 700 million years after the Big Bang.
