Astronomers identify potential clue to reinonization of universe

Date:
January 10, 2022
Source:
University of Iowa
Summary:
Astronomers have identified a potential clue to how the universe
became reionized after the Big Bang. The researchers identified a
black hole, a million times as bright as our sun, that may have been
similar to the sources that powered the universe's reionization.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== About 400,000 years after the universe was created began a period called
"The Epoch of Reionization."

========================================================================== During this time, the once hotter universe began to cool and matter
clumped together, forming the first stars and galaxies. As these stars
and galaxies emerged, their energy heated the surrounding environment, reionizing some of the remaining hydrogen in the universe.

The universe's reionization is well known, but determining how it happened
has been tricky. To learn more, astronomers have peered beyond our Milky
Way galaxy for clues. In a new study, astronomers at the University of
Iowa identified a source in a suite of galaxies called Lyman continuum
galaxies that may hold clues about how the universe was reionized.

In the study, the Iowa astronomers identified a black hole, a million
times as bright as our sun, that may have been similar to the sources that powered the universe's reionization. That black hole, the astronomers
report from observations made in February 2021 with NASA's flagship
Chandra X-ray observatory, is powerful enough to punch channels in its respective galaxy, allowing ultraviolet photons to escape and be observed.

"The implication is that outflows from black holes may be important to
enable escape of the ultraviolet radiation from galaxies that reionized
the intergalactic medium," says Phil Kaaret, professor and chair in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the study's corresponding author.

"We can't yet see the sources that actually powered the universe's
reionization because they are too far away," Kaaret says. "We looked
at a nearby galaxy with properties similar to the galaxies that formed
in the early universe. One of the primary reasons that the James Webb
Space Telescope was built was to try to see the galaxies hosting the
sources that actually powered the universe's reionization." Jesse Bluem,
a graduate research assistant at Iowa, and Andrea Prestwich, with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, are co-authors of the
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Lettersarticle.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Iowa. Original written
by Richard Lewis.

Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. P Kaaret, J Bluem, A H Prestwich. Rapid turn-on of a luminous X-ray
source in the candidate Lyman continuum emitting galaxy Tol
0440-381.

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, 2021;
DOI: 10.1093/mnrasl/slab127 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220110114148.htm
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