In our Universe there are 10-20 times more galaxies than expected

In our Universe there are 10-20 times more galaxies than expected

3D visualization of the cult images of deep space made by Hubble shows that the Universe contains far more galaxies than was commonly thought by previous studies.

A new recalculation in the observable universe showed 10–20 times more galaxies than was previously recorded. As a result, their numbers increased to as much as 2 trillion. This is stated in the new study.

The missing members of the tree of the galactic family were the smallest, dim clusters of stars formed during the first days of the Universe. At that time, space occupied less space and the galaxy, compared with the current size of the expanded universe, had to huddle too close.

For a long time, the Hubble Space Telescope peered into deep space. In the 1990s, he was interested in a small piece of sky that hides thousands of galaxies stretching back in time. Extrapolating (transferring the findings from one phenomenon to the aggregate) the data, the scientists concluded that the observable Universe contains 100-200 billion galaxies. This was announced by Christopher Conselice - an astronomer from the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom.

Now new results of Hubble image analysis in combination with other data show that the previous estimate is only 10-20% of the final number of galaxies, most of which are so weak that modern telescopes cannot notice them. These findings in his article in the journal The Astrophysical Journal published Conselice and his colleagues. Scientists convert images of Hubble and other telescopes into three-dimensional maps to calculate the density of galaxies and estimate the volumes of each subsequent region of space.

“Careful research has allowed the team to determine how many galaxies have disappeared from our sight. This is reminiscent of a kind of intergalactic archaeological excavations ... The results of this study are based on measuring the number of observed galaxies at different times (different instances of time) through the history of the Universe, ”a representative of the University of Nottingham wrote.

Conselice and his staff also discovered that in earlier times there were significantly more galaxies in the studied territories.

“Apparently, when the universe was only a few billion years old, it contained 10 times more galaxies in a given amount of space, the analogue of which we are considering today,” scientists say.

“It’s just incredible,” Conselice added. “Over the 13.7 billion years of cosmic evolution since the Big Bang, galaxies are growing due to star formation and merging with other galaxies. Finding more of them in the past implies that a significant evolution is expected, which will reduce their current numbers through extensive system fusion. ”

“This testifies to the so-called“ downward ”formation of the structure of the universe,” he added.

Comments (0)
Search