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Astronomers puzzled by little red galaxies that seem impossibly dense

newscientist.com

21–30 of 66 posts

Re: Astronomers puzzled by little red galaxies that seem impossibly dense

#22
> it was missing other key features seen with black holes, such as X-rays and radio waves. There were also other features, such as a peak in the light’s brightness at certain frequencies, that suggested it came from stars

Amateur speculation:

A dense group of stars tightly circling an early forming supermassive black hole? The stars would be able to (mostly) block the radio and x-rays.

Re: Astronomers puzzled by little red galaxies that seem impossibly dense

#23

Is this what a group of type III civilizations look like on the Kardashev scale? Back when the universe was hot and dense and it was still fun?

Well, the universe is very heterogeneous, you see. There's still plenty of hot, dense, and fun to go around, you just have to look in the right places!

Re: Astronomers puzzled by little red galaxies that seem impossibly dense

#26
post #6

Must be heck of a night sky on one of those planets

They might be too early for planets, at least rocky ones. I'm not exactly sure of the timeline for these stars, but planets require at least a generation or two of stars and novas to fuse heavy elements, and we're probably looking at some of the earliest stars formed (assuming it they are actually stars, not entirely clear yet). Also, if they're not sure how the stars themselves can survive being so close to each oth…

Man isn't that just so freaking cool. Matter comes together forms some kind of mechanical system to produce new materials which come together and form a new system and so on. Some how a few principles which all matter follows gets reproduced again and again at higher and higher scales.

Is there a fun/good read on astronomy?

Re: Astronomers puzzled by little red galaxies that seem impossibly dense

#27
post #4
post #3

Can those be just globular clusters in their 'bright' phase? Globular clusters are not even mentioned in that article, which is weird.

I'm gonna guess that the prominent astronomers at several top-notch universities mentioned have heard of globular clusters, and that the reason it's not mentioned is it's not relevant.

It's unfortunate that during "professional development" we collectively appear to unlearn saying "no". Or, more widely, learn to avoid using simple direct language. It's not limited to scientists :-(

Re: Astronomers puzzled by little red galaxies that seem impossibly dense

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might be too early for planets, at least rocky ones. I'm not exactly sure of the timeline for these stars, but planets require at least a generation or two of stars and novas to fuse heavy elements, and we're probably looking at some of the earliest stars formed (assuming it they are actually stars, not entirely clear yet). Also, if they're not sure how the stars themselves can survive being so close to each oth…

Man isn't that just so freaking cool. Matter comes together forms some kind of mechanical system to produce new materials which come together and form a new system and so on. Some how a few principles which all matter follows gets reproduced again and again at higher and higher scales. Is there a fun/good read on astronomy?

https://astrobites.org/

Re: Astronomers puzzled by little red galaxies that seem impossibly dense

#29
post #3

Can those be just globular clusters in their 'bright' phase? Globular clusters are not even mentioned in that article, which is weird.

Assuming that all their light is coming from stars, they have far too much stellar mass (with stellar masses similar to the Milky Way) to be the progenitors of today's globular clusters.

Re: Astronomers puzzled by little red galaxies that seem impossibly dense

#30
post #22

> it was missing other key features seen with black holes, such as X-rays and radio waves. There were also other features, such as a peak in the light’s brightness at certain frequencies, that suggested it came from stars Amateur speculation: A dense group of stars tightly circling an early forming supermassive black hole? The stars would be able to (mostly) block the radio and x-rays.

Space is big, really big, even if it looks small. I doubt you would be able to block enough but that is just armchair guessing. Things like reemission might also help?
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