Earliest, Brightest Galaxies Shine A Ghostly Green In Surprising New Find (Synopsis) [Starts With A Bang]

“The discovery that young galaxies are so unexpectedly bright–if you look for this distinctive green light–will dramatically change and improve the way that we study Galaxy formation throughout the history of the Universe.” -Matthew Malkan

Galaxies come in many different colors today: white, blue or red, mostly, depending on the populations of stars inside. But in a very rare set of circumstances, there can be green emissions as well, due mostly to the emission lines of doubly-ionized oxygen. The problem is we only see these in extraordinarily hot regions of the Universe, where ultra-hot stars or extremely unusual ultraviolet processes are found.

Yet by looking at the farthest star-forming galaxies available, two scientists broke the light up into components and found something shocking: this green emission feature was found to be incredibly strong in every one of thousands of galaxies that fit the criteria. It leads to a huge mystery: how do these ultra-hot stars form in the first place? Is it metallicity? Higher stellar masses? Or a top-heavy initial mass function?

The jury’s still out, but it’s looking more-and-more like these are the galaxies that reionized the Universe in the first place! Come get the whole story on this week’s Mostly Mute Monday!