A new telescope in Chile is proving itself to be a step into the future, outperforming similar devices by an extraordinary margin. The Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA) was reportedly able to find and observe over 100 of the early universe's star-forming galaxies, a feat other telescopes have spent more than a decade trying to do.
The ALMA's trick is its ability to observe light at longer wavelengths. To be exact, the range has been extended by just one millimeter, but that has made all the difference, allowing it to see past star dust and observe the previously unobservable. This will hopefully allow scientists a much great insight into how the galaxy began and evolved.
"Astronomers have waited for data like this for over a decade," said Jacqueline Hodge of the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy in a press release. "ALMA is so powerful that it has revolutionized the way that we can observe these galaxies, even though the telescope was not fully completed at the time of the observations."
The recent observations only had access to a quarter of the planned 66 antennas spread across 125 meters that the finished project will utilize. It's no wonder then why the scientific community is very excited about the ALMA's prospects.
In the past, scientists struggled to study star formations in the early universe, as previous observations were unable to determine which exact galaxies were birthing stars. On the contrary, ALMA needed just two minutes per galaxy to locate each one within a particular region, and with three times more sensitivity than previous telescopes.
Additionally, ALMA was able to double the total number of similar observations ever made in a matter of hours.
"We previously thought the brightest of these galaxies were forming stars a thousand times more vigorously than our own galaxy, the Milky Way, putting them at risk of blowing themselves apart," said ALMA team member Alexander Karim of Durham University. "The ALMA images revealed multiple, smaller galaxies forming stars at somewhat more reasonable rates."
Scientists are hopeful that this will open the floodgates for research done on star formations.
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