A Deeper View of Hubble’s Ultra Deep Field
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by Budgieye moderator
MUSE’s observations of the 10-square-arcminute field revealed 162
objects not detected by Hubble, including 72 new distant galaxies. Not
only that, but the instrument sharpened our measurements of all the
galaxies’ distances. Ten papers in a special issue of Astronomy &
Astrophysics reveal the implications for the formation and evolution
of stars and galaxies across cosmic time. [...]MUSE also enabled astronomers to find galaxies that had evaded
previous detection. Faint, low-mass galaxies pervade the early
universe like so many dust bunnies, but even though they’re teeming
with newborn stars, they emit most of their radiation at a single
wavelength, known as Lyman alpha.Hubble’s direct imaging missed many of these objects. MUSE caught 604
of them — including 72 new ones that Hubble had not detected — because
astronomers were able to slice apart the data cube, searching the HUDF
specifically for strong Lyman-alpha emitters.As Alyssa Drake (Lyon Centre for Astrophysics Research, France) and
colleagues show, these diminutive galaxies had an important role to
play — they could have single-handedly lit up the young universe
during what is known as the epoch of reionization.Astronomers are also using the MUSE observations to investigate
hydrogen-rich gas haloes around faraway galaxies, galaxy-scale winds
and their connection to star formation, and rotational velocity curves
of even very distant galaxies.
http://wwwcdn.skyandtelescope.com/wp-content/uploads/HUDF-MUSE-600px.jpg
This image shows the Hubble Ultra Deep Field region, a tiny but much-studied region in the constellation of Fornax, as observed with the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. But this picture only gives a very partial view of the riches of the MUSE data, which also provide a spectrum for each pixel in the picture.
ESO / MUSE HUDF collaborationPosted