Subj : Astronomers detect 'galactic space laser
To   : All
From : ScienceDaily
Date : Thu Apr 07 2022 22:30:40

 Astronomers detect 'galactic space laser' 

  Date:
      April 7, 2022
  Source:
      International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research
  Summary:
      A powerful radio-wave laser, called a 'megamaser', has been observed
      by the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa. The record-breaking find
      is the most distant megamaser of its kind ever detected, at about
      five billion light years from Earth. The light from the megamaser
      has traveled 58 thousand billion billion (58 followed by 21 zeros)
      kilometers to Earth.



FULL STORY
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A powerful radio-wave laser, called a 'megamaser', has been observed by
the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa.


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The record-breaking find is the most distant megamaser of its kind ever
detected, at about five billion light years from Earth.

The light from the megamaser has travelled 58 thousand billion billion
(58 followed by 21 zeros) kilometres to Earth.

The discovery was made by an international team of astronomers led by Dr
Marcin Glowacki, who previously worked at the Inter-University Institute
for Data Intensive Astronomy and the University of the Western Cape in
South Africa.

Dr Glowacki, who is now based at the Curtin University node of the
International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Western
Australia, said megamasers are usually created when two galaxies violently
collide in the Universe.

"When galaxies collide, the gas they contain becomes extremely dense
and can trigger concentrated beams of light to shoot out," he said.



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"This is the first hydroxyl megamaser of its kind to be observed by
MeerKAT and the most distant seen by any telescope to date.

"It's impressive that, with just a single night of observations, we've
already found a record-breaking megamaser. It shows just how good
the telescope is."  The record-breaking object was named 'Nkalakatha'
[pronounced ng-kuh-la-kuh- tah] -- an isiZulu word meaning "big boss."
Dr Glowacki said the megamaser was detected on the first night of a survey
involving more than 3000 hours of observations by the MeerKAT telescope.

The team is using MeerKAT to observe narrow regions of the sky extremely
deeply and will measure atomic hydrogenin galaxies from the distant past
to now. The combination of studying hydroxl masers and hydrogen will
help astronomers better understand how the Universe has evolved over time.

"We have follow-up observations of the megamaser planned and hope to
make many more discoveries," Dr Glowacki said.

MeerKAT is a precursor instrument for the Square Kilometre Array --
a global initiative to build the world's largest radio telescopes in
Western Australia and South Africa.


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Story Source: Materials provided by
International_Centre_for_Radio_Astronomy_Research. Note: Content may be
edited for style and length.


==========================================================================
Journal Reference:
   1. Marcin Glowacki, Jordan D. Collier, Amir Kazemi-Moridani, Bradley
   Frank,
      Hayley Roberts, Jeremy Darling, Hans-Rainer Klo"ckner, Nathan Adams,
      Andrew J. Baker, Matthew Bershady, Tariq Blecher, Sarah-Louise
      Blyth, Rebecca Bowler, Barbara Catinella, Laurent Chemin, Steven
      M. Crawford, Catherine Cress, Romeel Dave', Roger Deane, Erwin de
      Blok, Jacinta Delhaize, Kenneth Duncan, Ed Elson, Sean February,
      Eric Gawiser, Peter Hatfield, Julia Healy, Patricia Henning,
      Kelley M. Hess, Ian Heywood, Benne W. Holwerda, Munira Hoosain,
      John P. Hughes, Zackary L. Hutchens, Matt Jarvis, Sheila Kannappan,
      Neal Katz, Dusan Keres, Marie Korsaga, Rene'e C. Kraan-Korteweg,
      Philip Lah, Michelle Lochner, Natasha Maddox, Sphesihle Makhathini,
      Gerhardt R. Meurer, Martin Meyer, Danail Obreschkow, Se-Heon Oh,
      Tom Oosterloo, Joshua Oppor, Hengxing Pan, D. J.

      Pisano, Nandrianina Randriamiarinarivo, Swara Ravindranath, Anja C.

      Schro"der, Rosalind Skelton, Oleg Smirnov, Mathew Smith, Rachel S.

      Somerville, Raghunathan Srianand, Lister Staveley-Smith,
      Masayuki Tanaka, Mattia Vaccari, Wim van Driel, Marc Verheijen,
      Fabian Walter, John F. Wu, Martin A. Zwaan. LADUMA: Discovery of
      a luminous OH megamaser at z>0.5.

      The Astrophysical Journal Letters (accepted), 2022 [abstract]
==========================================================================

Link to news story:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220407101031.htm

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