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A team of more than 200 astronomers from 18 countries concluded that the Universe has new members: thanks to the low-frequency sensor network, the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) 300,000 radio sources which correspond to distant galaxies, Publishes the magazine Astronomy & Astrophysics.
It's a first step in getting information about black holes and how clusters of galaxies evolve, since these experts just inspected 2% of space and they estimate they could find about 15 million cosmic radio sources.
"We hope to answer a fascinating question: where do the black holes come from?", Which are "very confusing eaters" and that "when the gas falls on them, they emit jets of material that can be seen at the radio wavelengths" , said Huub Rottgering, a researcher at the University of Leiden (The Netherlands).
The LOFAR radio telescope, operated by the Netherlands Radio Astronomy Institute (ASTRON), "has a remarkable sensitivity" and allows to observe "the jets" that "are present in the most massive galaxies", which means that "their black holes never stop eating", said Philip Best, a member of the University of Edinburgh (Scotland, UK).
Annalisa Bonafede, of the University of Bologna, Italy, explained that when two galaxy clusters are fused, they can produce radio emissions, whose origin would be in particles that accelerate during fusion.
Thanks to LOFAR, they found that "clusters of galaxies that are not merging can also show this emission, albeit at a very low level that was previously undetectable" and that, "in addition to fusion events, there are other phenomena that can trigger acceleration of particles at large scales ".
The LOFAR telescope is the only one that has the ability to map the sky in such detail and according to Carole Jackson, general manager of ASTRON, "it will be a wonderful scientific legacy for the future."
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