Green pea galaxies hid the answer to the universe’s dark age end or the cosmic dark age as it the universe’s cooling period is known.
The Monitor Daily – Green pea galaxies hid the answer to the universe’s dark age end as per a newly published study stemming from the University of Geneva. For one billion years after the Big Bang, the universe entered what is deemed a cosmic dark age.
The first sparks of life existed, yet the universe cooled off. After the one billion years period, a new era began, that of cosmic reionization. However, the mysterious end of the cosmic dark age has been left largely unexplained. Until now, when the progress of science and technological developments have brought about a swath of tools and new methodologies to inspect this mystery in greater detail.
The study, published in the Nature journal suggests that green pea galaxies hid the answer to the universe’s dark age end. Green pea galaxies take their name after the first images which brought them to the scientific community’s attention. Imaged as green light blobs, these flourishing galaxies haven’t even been discovered until 2007. thanks to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), green pea galaxies were brought to light.
The compact galaxies aren’t really pea-size. They are in fact flourishing galaxies where new stars are born at an incredible rate. Moreover, they emit energy into the universe at an advanced pace. In fact, they emit so much energy that since 2013 they became the subject of study for potential factors which brought the cosmic dark age to an end.
Thanks to vast Sloan Digital Sky Survey data, scientists were able to detect approximately 5,000 green pea galaxies. Of them, five green pea galaxies were studied in detail. Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope found one particular green pea galaxy which quickly raised interest. Dubbed J0925, the green pea galaxy ejects photons actively, leading to rapid rates of hydrogen ionization.
This finding offers clues as to how the cosmic dark age came to an end. One billion years after the Big Bang, the universe fell silent and cooled down. The first burst of heat had been consumed. But as matter starting condensing and brought stars and then galaxies into existence, the green pea galaxies took the universe’s evolution one step further.
Stars in green pea galaxies are created at an explosive rate. Galactic winds in addition to the stars explosion gave off another enormous burst of energy capable of triggering the cosmic reionization, and thus reheating of the universe.
Photo Credits: spaceinfo.com.au
