1 week Ago By Aditya Madanapalle
Researchers have used distant active black holes to measure the expansion of the universe during its infancy. New Delhi: An international team of astronomers have more precisely measured the expansion of the young universe by carefully examining the light of distant quasars. These exotic objects are supermassive black holes from the dawn of time that are actively feeding on the surrounding gas and dust.
The tortured material falling inwards into the supermassive black holes glow in frequencies across the electromagnetic spectrum because of the extreme friction. The observations can be used to determine the large scale oscillations and distribution of matter in the universe, known as baryon acoustic oscillations, which act as a reliable cosmic distance scale. The research was supported by around a thousand cosmic simulations of the universe at different scales, based on data gathered by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) and the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii.
Conventional observations indicate that the universe is composed of 73 percent dark energy, 24 percent dark matter, with the remaining four percent making up baryonic matter, or the familiar matter that makes up the visible stars and galaxies in the night sky. Investigating the so-called Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations or BAO’s produced within the primordial soup of matter produced by the Big Bang, and can be studied using the cosmic microwave background. The Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations and the Lyman-Alpha Forest The light from the distant quasars pass through intergalactic clouds of gas and dust, resulting in a set of absorption lines in their spectra known as the Lyman-Alpha forest , which provides scientists with a powerful tool to map the three-dimensional distribution of both dark matter and baryonic matter.
The researchers plan to generate hundreds of large-scale simulations of the Lyman-Alpha forest covering the whole sky, which can then be used as a baseline for future cosmological studies. A paper describing the findings has been published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters . Click for more latest Science news .
Also get top headlines and latest news from India and around the world at News9. Aditya has studied journalism, multimedia technologies and ᚨᚾᚲᛁᛖᚾᛏ ᚱᚢᚾᛖᛋ. He has over 10 years experience as a science and technology reporter, with a focus on space, AI, videogames, cybsersecurity and fundamental research.
He is usually found playing with age inappropriate LEGO sets or sedentary games both new and old..
