Astronomers have found an incredibly hot gas cluster in the early universe.

According to ТСН: Astronomers made an astonishing discovery in the early universe: they found an extremely hot gas cluster that has very high temperature and mass. This object appeared just 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang and its measurements significantly exceed scientists' expectations.

The research describing this discovery was published in the journal Nature.

“We did not expect to see such a hot atmosphere of a galaxy cluster at such an early stage of cosmic history,” said Dazhi Zhou from the University of British Columbia.

Initially, researchers doubted the reliability of the obtained signal, but after several months of verification, they found that the gas in the cluster SPT2349-56 is five times hotter than previously anticipated.

Scientists suggest that the source of such powerful energy may be three supermassive black holes at the center of the cluster that are accelerating gas around. This discovery forces us to rethink our understanding of the formation of the first galaxy clusters in the universe.

Characteristics of the SPT2349-56 cluster

SPT2349-56 is a young but massive galaxy cluster that contains about 30 active galaxies in its core. The diameter of the central part reaches 500 thousand light years. Observations were conducted using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) with the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect to determine the thermal energy of the gas.

“Understanding galaxy clusters is key to understanding the largest galaxies in the universe,” emphasized Scott Chapman, a professor at Dalhousie University. “Their evolution is largely determined by the environment in which they form, including the intracluster gas.”

Such studies open new horizons in astronomy and cosmology, allowing for a better understanding of how galaxies formed in the early universe. This fact is of great significance for future research and theories about the evolution of the universe, as well as about the interaction of galaxies in their initial stages of development.