What can the Cosmic Dawn, which is when scientists hypothesize the first galaxies and stars formed after the Big Bang, teach scientists about the formation and evolution of the early universe? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address as an international team of researchers demonstrated how they can someday use radio signals to study the first stars and galaxies that existed in the universe. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the formation and evolution of the early universe after the Big Bang and what this could mean for finding life beyond Earth.
For the study, the researchers developed theoretical models to determine how radio telescopes currently being built could help astronomers use radio signals from the early universe to gain better understanding of the formation and evolution of the first stars and galaxies. The team aspires to use REACH (the Radio Experiment for the Analysis of Cosmic Hydrogen) and Square Kilometer Array (SKA) to examine the first radio signals emitted from the early universe, with both telescopes being calibrated and constructed, respectively.
“The predictions we are reporting have huge implications for our understanding of the nature of the very first stars in the Universe,” said Dr. Eloy de Lera Acedo, who is an Associate Professor of Radio Cosmology, Principal Investigator of the REACH telescope, and a co-author on the study. “We show evidence that our radio telescopes can tell us details about the mass of those first stars and how these early lights may have been very different from today’s stars. Radio telescopes like REACH are promising to unlock the mysteries of the infant Universe, and these predictions are essential to guide the radio observations we are doing from the Karoo, in South Africa.”
It is estimated that Cosmic Dawn occurred between 50 million to 1 billion years after the Big Bang and is considered one of the most crucial turning points in the evolution of the universe. Additionally, scientists hypothesize that better understanding Cosmic Dawn will help them gain greater insight into the present-day universe, including galaxy clustering, chemical enrichment, and habitable worlds.
What new discoveries about Cosmic Dawn will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Nature Astronomy, EurekAlert!