"This system is truly extraordinary. We're seeing the radio equivalent of a laser halfway across the universe. Fundamentally, masers and lasers are focused beams of light in the same frequency. In the realm of astrophysics, these can arise from clouds of dust being excited into a higher energy state from the light emitted by other sources, like stars and black holes."
"In the case of a galactic merger, the clouds of gas from the colliding realms compress to form stars that produce light, which then can excite hydroxyl molecules. These can be so luminous that astronomers call them megamasers. But this latest maser is so powerful that the researchers argue that it warrants an even higher classification: a gigamaser."
Using the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa, astronomers detected an extraordinarily powerful maser—a focused microwave laser beam—originating from galaxy H1429-0028, nearly 8 billion light-years distant. The signal was produced by colliding galaxies and amplified by gravitational lensing, where intervening galaxy gravity acts as a magnifying glass. Masers form when dust clouds become excited by radiation from stars and black holes, releasing photons in the same frequency. In galactic mergers, compressed gas clouds form stars that excite hydroxyl molecules, creating luminous megamasers. This discovery is so powerful that researchers classify it as a gigamaser, representing an unprecedented phenomenon in astrophysics.
Read at Futurism
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]