Bizarre Galaxy Discovered With Seemingly No Stars Whatsoever

[Judi Lynn]

11 January 2024
By MICHELLE STARR





A newly discovered object is stretching our understanding of what constitutes a galaxy.

Called J0613+52, this massive blob of something some 270 million light-years away appears to have no stars whatsoever. At least, none that can be seen. It's just a haze made of the kind of gas that's found between stars in normal galaxies, drifting around by its lone self like an absolute badass.

Its mass and motion appear to be normal for what we'd expect of a spiral galaxy… in fact, if you extracted the stars from a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way or Andromeda, J0613+52 is pretty much what you'd end up with.

According to a team of astronomers led by astrophysicist Karen O'Neil of the Green Bank Observatory, it could be the first discovery of a primordial galaxy in the nearby Universe – a galaxy made up mostly of the gas that formed at the beginning of time.

- click for image -

http://tinyurl.com/4j8kx98c

The region of space where J0613+52 can be found. (O'Neil et al.)

The discovery – one made purely by chance – has been presented at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

https://www.sciencealert.com/bizarre-galaxy-discovered-with-seemingly-no-stars-whatsoever

[BaronChocula]

1. A galaxy with no bright objects and only lots of gas?

Are they naming it Fox News?
(Sorry, couldn't resist)

[JohnSJ]

2. Curious what the James Webb telescope observes in this area

[Chainfire]

3. The more we learn the more we learn how much we don't know.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Astronomers accidentally discover 'dark' primordial galaxy with no visible stars

By Robert Lea published 1 day ago
"Stars could be there, we just can't see them."



Astronomers have accidentally discovered a dark galaxy filled with primordial gas untouched that appears to have no visible stars.
The researchers behind the discovery say this galaxy, designated J0613+52, could be "the faintest galaxy found to date." Interestingly, scientists using the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) discovered the "dark" galaxy through a complete error.

"The GBT was accidentally pointed to the wrong coordinates and found this object. It's a galaxy made only out of gas — it has no visible stars," Green Bank Observatory senior scientist Karen O'Neil said in a statement. "Stars could be there. We just can't see them."

Remarkably, this galaxy full of primordial gas isn't billions of light-years away and thus seen as it was when the 13.8 billion-year-old universe was in its infancy; instead, the dark galaxy designated J0613+52 is just around 270 million light-years away.

Low Surface Brightness galaxies

J0613+52 was discovered by astronomers as they surveyed hydrogen gas in several so-called Low Surface Brightness (LSB) galaxies using several major radio telescopes around the globe, including the Green Bank Telescope (GBT), the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope located in Green Bank, West Virginia, and the Nançay Radio Telescope at the Paris Observatory.

More:
https://www.space.com/dark-primordial-galaxy-no-stars-green-bank-observatory