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Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.
Chile: Astronomers find evidence of dark galaxies.
Astronomers in Chile using a powerful telescope have observed what
appears to be evidence of the existence of dark galaxies, the European
Southern Observatory (ESO) announced Wednesday.
Dark galaxies are small, gas-rich galaxies from the early universe
that are believed to be the building blocks of today's bright,
star-filled galaxies, said the ESO, an intergovernmental organization
supported by 15 countries.
"For the first time, dark galaxies -- an early phase of galaxy
formation, predicted by theory but unobserved until now -- may have been
spotted," the ESO said in a statement.
"Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, an international team thinks they
have detected these elusive objects by observing them glowing as they
are illuminated by a quasar," it said.
The ESO is the most advanced astronomical observatory in the world, and operates three sites in Chile.
The Very Large Telescope (VLT) array -- a cluster of four telescopes
that can view objects four billion times fainter than objects visible to
the naked eye -- is housed at the ESO's Paranal site in Chile's Atacama
Desert.
"Our approach to the problem of detecting a dark galaxy was simply to
shine a bright light on it," researcher Simon Lilly said in the
release.
"With this study, we've made a crucial step towards revealing and
understanding the obscure early stages of galaxy formation and how
galaxies acquired their gas," added his colleague, Sebastiano Cantalupo.
The ESO is supported by Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Britain, the Czech
Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands,
Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
An artist's impression released by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) on June 11, 2012 shows the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) in Chile's Atacama Desert. Astronomers in Chile using a powerful telescope have observed what appears to be evidence of the existence of dark galaxies, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced Wednesday.
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