Researchers spotted three baby galaxies sitting in a blob of primordial gas; they are believed to have the potential to merge together and grow up to be similar to our Milky Way.
The galaxies were detected at a distance of 13 billion light-years from Earth by the "Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile and NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes" in 2009, a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory news release reported.
"This exceedingly rare triple system, seen when the universe was only 800 million years old, provides important insights into the earliest stages of galaxy formation during a period known as 'cosmic dawn,' when the universe was first bathed in starlight," Richard Ellis of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, a member of the research team, said.
When the object was first spotted researchers only detected a bubble of hot primordial gas. Primordial gas is " a mixture of the light elements hydrogen and helium" which were created during the Big Bang. The galaxy trip was named Himiko ("after a legendary queen of ancient Japan") and is bigger than most galaxies with the same level of development. The cluster's size is the reason researchers believe it has the potential to grow into a Milky Way-sized galaxy.
"The new observations revealed that, rather than a single galaxy, Himiko harbors three distinct, bright sources, whose intense star formation is heating and ionizing this giant cloud of gas," Masami Ouchi, an associate professor at the University of Tokyo "who led the international team of astronomers from Japan and the United States," said,
Data from ALMA, Hubble and Spitzer also suggests the researchers to believe there is a chance the cluster is made up of entirely primordial gas.
"If correct, this would be a landmark discovery signaling the detection of a primordial galaxy seen during its formation," the news release reported.
