Astronomers reveal how infant galaxies appeared in early universe

By Dean Murray

Astronomers have shared a jaw-dropping view of what galaxies looked like in the early Universe.

A study has peered back to when the Universe was only about one billion years old, which researchers say is a mere "toddler in cosmic terms."

Observations using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) astronomical observatory in Chile are helping scientists understand how galaxies formed and evolved from primordial gas clouds into the organized structures we see today.

One dramatic visualization derived from the new survey shows the formation of an early universe galaxy featuring clumps of star-forming galaxies, with carbon gas shown in red, and dark dust shown in black.

This process is documented in detail throughout the many galaxies observed in ALMA’s CRISTAL, or CII] Resolved ISM in STar-forming galaxies, survey.

“ALMA’s incredible ability to see through dust and gas has allowed us to observe these distant galaxies in remarkable detail,” explains Rodrigo Ignacio Herrera Camus, with Chile’s Universidad de Concepción. “We’re not just seeing blobs of light; we’re resolving the internal structures of these galaxies and learning about the processes happening within them.”

“CRISTAL provides the kind of detailed data that simply wasn’t possible before ALMA,” adds Herrera Camus, “We’ve got a new family portrait of early galaxy evolution. These observations are challenging our existing models of galaxy formation and providing new avenues for research.”

The U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO), a partner in ALMA, said: "The CRISTAL survey demonstrates the power of ALMA for studying galaxy evolution in the early Universe. By tracing the cold gas and dust that fuel star formation, ALMA is helping