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Star Factories at the End of the World | Maxplanckresearch 1/2013 Star Factories at the End of the World When the universe came into being 13.7 billion years ago, there was initially only radiation. A few hundred million years later, however, the space was filled with galaxies – tremendously productive star factories that don’t fit quite so well with the image of a gradual cosmic evolution. Researchers like Fabian Walter from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg are attempting to illuminate a dark epoch of the universe. TEXT ALEXANDER STIRN FOCUS_Cosmology A deeper view into the cosmos: This section from the Hubble Ultra Deep Field shows the galaxies at the edge of space and time. Huge numbers of stars are born in these young Milky Ways. inding catchy designations But this is slowly changing: “Because It’s still detective work – a laborious for incomprehensible pro- our telescopes are continually improv- search that has practically nothing to cesses has never been a prob- ing and becoming more sensitive, we do with the colorful photos that astron- lem for astronomers: They see things today that we couldn’t have omy otherwise produces. Many of these call the era that begins just observed ten years ago,” says Fabian typical, vivid photographs are hanging F 380,000 years after the birth of the uni- Walter, an astronomer at the Max in the stairwell of the Heidelberg-based verse the Dark Ages. At that time, the Planck Institute for Astronomy in Hei- institute, a concrete structure located positively charged ions emerging from delberg. There, the 41-year-old investi- on the Königstuhl promontory high the Big Bang set about catching the free gates how and when the first stars above the city. They show planetary electrons buzzing around – and the af- emerged, how productive the early gal- nebulae, star clusters and spiral galax- terglow of the Big Bang fades. Howev- axies were, and where exactly the stel- ies. In between all these stellar images er, no stars that could bring light to the lar nurseries were located. hangs an unspectacular photograph, sudden darkness had formed yet. Time and time again throughout mostly black with many pixelated dabs This distant age isn’t only a dark pe- this process, he and his co-theoreticians of color. Hubble Ultra Deep Field is writ- riod cosmologically; science, too, has have encountered unforeseen problems ten below. had a difficult time illuminating the pro- – and will probably continue to do so. It is a view into the deepest depths cesses of that time. There are hardly any “The study of galaxies in the early of space. For many hundreds of hours, observations surrounding the birth of phase of the universe will develop into the Hubble Space Telescope directed its the first stars. Researchers must thus rely a main area of research for astronomers eyes to a region of the sky that would Photo: NASA, ESA, R. Ellis (Caltech) and the HUDF 2012 Team on simulations and theoretical ideas. in the coming years,” says Walter. be only one square millimeter in size 1 | 13 MaxPlanckResearch 27 FOCUS_Cosmology » Especially molecular hydrogen is necessary for a star to be born. However, hydrogen can’t be directly observed. on a thumbnail at arm’s length. Ex- twice as large as for a stationary object, axies that can be seen in the Hubble Deep tremely old objects, themselves glow- and with a value of 2, it has tripled, and Field (HDF). This light largely originates ing extremely weakly, can still be made so on. Because astronomers continual- from fully formed stars. The birth of new out on it. “Many of these galactic imag- ly see distant objects at the point in suns happens elsewhere – in the interi- es are made up of only a couple hun- time when the light began its journey, or of dense clouds of dust and gas. dred photons,” says Walter and points the redshift additionally serves as a “Without gas, no stars,” says Walter. to a reddish, shimmering spot. metric for the age of a galaxy. The light Especially molecular hydrogen is The color is no accident: the uni- from an object with z = 10 started its necessary for the stellar offspring to be verse has been continuing to expand trip at about the time when the uni- born; however, hydrogen can’t be di- since the Big Bang. In the process, the verse was just 500 million years old. rectly observed. It is only possible particles of light called photons have With an assumed age of the universe of through an indirect route of a gas that been stretched as well. Their wave- around 13.7 billion years, the light was is closely related to the amounts of hy- lengths were forced to extend – and all thus under way for 13.2 billion years. drogen: carbon monoxide. Its mole- the more so the farther away the ob- “Very remote objects quickly be- cule emits a characteristic signal that ject that once sent them out was from come dramatically dark due to redshift normally lies in the infrared region of the Earth. – most especially in the visible light the spectrum. Astronomers call this effect “red- range,” says Fabian Walter. However, the Due to the redshift, it arrives at shift.” Its magnitude is described by the Heidelberg-based astronomer is only Earth with wavelengths of a few milli- “z value.” At z = 1, the wavelength is marginally interested in the light of gal- meters – that is, just below the micro- 40 [C II] 20 0 2012 1 CO(6–5) Nature 0.5 0 1.5 CO(5–4) 1 0.5 Flow density (mJy) density Flow 0 -0.5 0.5 CO(2–1) A galaxy pops up: The object known as HDF850.1 can’t be seen at all in the Hubble Deep Field (photo left). In contrast, this distant galaxy becomes visible 2012; photos: STScI/NASA, F. Walter (MPIA), in the submillimeter wavelength region (light contour lines, photo right). 0 The light from HDF850.1 took 12.5 billion years to reach us and is extremely weak. Nevertheless, a team of astronomers headed by Fabian Walter Nature -2000 0 2000 succeeded in analyzing the emissions of the galaxy. The spectra (left) show Speed (km/s) characteristic lines of carbon that indicate a high stellar birth rate. Graphic: 28 MaxPlanckResearch 1 | 13 FOKUS_Kosmologie wave range. At the very least, the brightest of these ancient regions of ) -1 -16 star formation can be found by modern m μ -2 millimeter-wavelength telescopes, such 2 x 10 as the observatory of the Institut de Ra- dioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM) in the French Alps (see box on page 31). -16 A BLACK SPOT ON A Flow density (W m density Flow BLACK BACKGROUND 010 With the help of those regions, astron- 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 2.2 2.4 omers have discovered an entire series Wavelength (μm) of such sources over the past years. One of the most important of these is sim- Keys to the early developmental phase of the universe: Quasars are some of first objects ply called HDF850.1. The galaxy is no formed a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. In the heart of these young galaxies are gigantic black holes that spew matter in the form of jets into space (illustration above). more than a black spot on a black back- The spectra of these objects reveal a great deal about their internal workings, especially 2011 (bottom) ground in the classic Hubble Deep Field, about the processes of stellar formation. Here the spectrum of the record holder (z = 7.1), but it lights up strongly in the submil- which looks just like any quasar in the vicinity of Earth. Nature limeter wavelength region. Carbon monoxide molecules that once ab- sorbed radiation, converted it into ro- bian Walter succeeded in determining However, the study, which was pub- tational oscillations, and finally emitted the redshift of HDF850.1 in 2012. It lished in the journal NATURE, reveals it at clearly defined frequencies (spec- lies at a z-value of 5.2. Accordingly, the even more: characteristic spectral lines tral lines) are especially visible there. light of the galaxy was on its way to of carbon – particularly of atoms that Together with researchers from the Earth for 12.5 billion years, and permits are missing an electron – indicate high Max Planck Institute for Radio Astron- a glimpse into a time when the uni- stellar activity. These spectral lines not Graphic: ESO – M. Kornmesser (top), omy in Bonn and other colleagues, Fa- verse was a mere 1.2 billion years old. only reveal that new stars are being 1 | 13 MaxPlanckResearch 29 In the labor ward of suns: The Orion Nebula produced hidden behind thick clouds ments formed in the Big Bang needed (above) is one of the most picturesque of dust and gas deep in the distant many hundreds of thousands of years subjects in our firmament. You can see a faint Milky Way, but they also provide clues to slowly agglomerate – supported by spot in the sword hilt of Orion even with the unaided eye. about the course of this process. a force that astronomers call dark mat- A telescope reveals a majestic cloud of dust ter and about whose nature they still and gas where stars are born. In the Orion KL A GALAXY WITH AN AMAZINGLY can say hardly anything. The gaseous region of the formation (black rectangle), HIGH BIRTH RATE elements – primarily hydrogen, heli- located about 1,350 light-years away, the um and lithium – collected in the disks stellar birthrate is close to that of Galaxy According to this, a galaxy like HDF850.1 of the first galaxies, condensed under J1148+5251 (below), though calculated over a much greater volume.
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