| Title | Universe's Ultraviolet Background Could Provide Clues About Missing Galaxies | |
| Date | Sunday March 26 2017, @04:02AM | |
| Author | Fnord666 | |
| Topic | ||
| from the universe's-desktop dept. | ||
Astronomers have developed a way to detect the ultraviolet (UV) background of the Universe, which could help explain why there are so few small galaxies in the cosmos.
UV radiation is invisible but shows up as visible red light when it interacts with gas.
An international team of researchers led by Durham University, UK, has now found a way to measure it using instruments on Earth.
The researchers said their method can be used to measure the evolution of the UV background through cosmic time, mapping how and when it suppresses the formation of small galaxies.
[...] Researchers pointed the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE), an instrument of the European Southern Observatory's Very-Large Telescope, in Chile, at the galaxy UGC 7321, which lies at a distance of 30 million light years from Earth.
MUSE provides a spectrum, or band of colours, for each pixel in the image allowing the researchers to map the red light produced by the UV radiation illuminating the gas in that galaxy.
A measurement of the z = 0 UV background from Hα fluorescence (open, DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx398) (DX)
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