{"id":222239,"date":"2026-01-05T20:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T20:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/222239\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T20:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T20:40:08","slug":"earliest-hottest-galaxy-cluster-gas-on-record-could-change-our-cosmological-models","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/222239\/","title":{"rendered":"Earliest, hottest galaxy cluster gas on record could change our cosmological models"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\"Galaxy<\/p>\n

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image:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Artist\u2019s impression of a forming galaxy cluster in the early Universe: radio jets from active galaxies are embedded in a hot\u00a0intracluster\u00a0atmosphere (red), illustrating a large thermal reservoir of gas in the nascent cluster.<\/p>\n

view more\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Credit: Lingxiao Yuan<\/p>\n

An international team of astronomers led by Canadian researchers has found something the universe\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0supposed to have: a galaxy cluster blazing with hot gas just 1.4\u202fbillion years after the Big Bang, far earlier and hotter than theory predicts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The result, published today in\u00a0Nature<\/a>, could upend current models of galaxy cluster formation, which predict such temperatures occur only in more mature, stable galaxy clusters later in the universe\u2019s life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t expect to see such a hot cluster atmosphere so early in cosmic history,\u201d said lead author\u00a0Dazhi\u00a0Zhou, a PhD candidate in the UBC department of physics and astronomy. \u201cIn fact, at\u00a0first\u00a0I was skeptical about the signal as it was too strong to be real. But after months of verification,\u00a0we\u2019ve\u00a0confirmed this gas is at least five times hotter than predicted, and even hotter and more energetic than what we find in many present-day clusters.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis tells us that something in the early universe, likely three recently discovered supermassive black holes in the cluster, were already pumping huge amounts of energy into the surroundings and shaping the young cluster, much earlier and more strongly than we thought,\u201d said co-author Dr. Scott\u00a0Chapman,\u00a0 a\u00a0professor at Dalhousie University who conducted the research while at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Investigating a baby cluster\u00a0<\/p>\n

Peering back in time about 12 billion years, the researchers focused on a \u2018baby\u2019 galaxy cluster called SPT2349-56. To do so, the research team used a cluster of radio telescopes called the Atacama Large Millimeter\/submillimeter Array (ALMA), which includes instruments designed, built, and tested by\u00a0the\u00a0 NRC.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This infant cluster is massive for its relative youth, with a core measuring about 500,000 light years across, comparable to the size of the halo surrounding the Milky Way. It\u00a0contains\u00a0more than 30 active galaxies and forms stars more than 5,000 times faster than our own galaxy, all in a very compact region.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The research team focused on a cosmological tool called the\u00a0Sunyaev-Zeldovich\u00a0effect, which can help scientists work out the thermal energy of the\u00a0intracluster\u00a0medium:the\u00a0gas existing between the galaxies of a given cluster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUnderstanding galaxy clusters is the key to understanding the biggest galaxies in the universe,\u201d said Dr. Chapman, who is also a UBC affiliate professor. \u201cThese massive galaxies mostly reside in clusters, and their evolution is heavily shaped by the very strong environment of the clusters as they form, including the\u00a0intracluster\u00a0medium.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Supermassive blackhole heating\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u200bCurrent models suggest the massive reservoirs of gas that form the\u00a0intracluster\u00a0medium are collected, and then heated, by gravitational interactions as an immature, unstable galaxy cluster matures and collapses inward to a stable state. The new finding suggests that this birth is more explosive and that scientists may need to rethink the sequence and speed of galaxy cluster evolution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The researchers now want to investigate how all the pieces fit together. \u201cWe want to figure out how the intense star formation, the active black holes and this overheated atmosphere interact, and what it tells us about how present galaxy clusters were built,\u201d said Zhou. \u201cHow can all of this be happening at once in such a young, compact system?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Interview language(s): English (Chapman, Zhou)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Method of Research<\/p>\n

Observational study<\/p>\n

Subject of Research<\/p>\n

Not applicable<\/p>\n

Article Title<\/p>\n

Sunyaev-Zeldovich detection of hot intracluster gas at redshift 4.3<\/p>\n

Article Publication Date<\/p>\n

5-Jan-2026<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"image:\u00a0 Artist\u2019s impression of a forming galaxy cluster in the early Universe: radio jets from active galaxies are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[85,46,370,141],"class_list":["post-222239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-physics","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-physics","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}