Galaxy alignments traced back ten billion years
June 13, 2017 by Sarah Conant
A new study based on observations with the Hubble Space Telescope has shown that the most massive galaxies in the universe have been aligned with their surroundings for at least ten billion years. Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, HST Frontier Fields.
A new study led by Michael West of Lowell Observatory reveals that the most massive galaxies in the universe have been aligned with their surroundings for the past ten billion years. It is the furthest back in time that this phenomenon has ever been seen.
While most galaxies are randomly oriented in space, astronomers have long known that the biggest ones often point towards their neighbors. But when and how these alignments occurred remains a mystery. Looking to the past can shed new light on the origin of galaxy alignments.
Read more at:
https://phys.org/news/2017-06-galaxy-alignments-ten-billion-years.html#jCp
