Press Releases

The first galaxies of the Universe deliver their secrets

UniGE  Press release(16 march 2017)

An international team involving two researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) broke through the first secrets of the "Dark Ages" of the Universe, shortly after the Big Bang.

By pushing the largest telescopes to their limits, an international team of astronomers, involving two researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Daniel Schaerer and Stephane de Barros, discovered a population of small young galaxies at a distance more than 11 billion light-years. Although rare, these reveal in unprecedented detail the extreme physical conditions that existed when the first galaxies formed just after the Big Bang, shedding new light on this still unknown process. A research to read in the journal Nature Astronomy.

 

PR_picture_OLF.png Hubble image (left and top) and
VIMOS-VLT spectrum (bottom right)
of a distant, young galaxy,
analogue of primeval galaxies.

Contact: Daniel Schaerer

Mar 16, 2017

Press Releases