Title: Origin of the galaxies: a new light on the cosmic background radiation

Early galaxies contribute to the "re -glowing" of the space at - University of Bonn

The Big Bang, which produced the universe 13.8 billion years ago, was the beginning of space, time and matter. About 380,000 years after this event, when the universe had already extended and cooled considerably, electrons and protons were able to merge into neutral hydrogen. This transformation caused the universe to be permeable to light and the cosmic background radiation was created, which can still be observed today.

Current research by Prof. Dr. Pavel Kroupa and Dr. Eda Gjergo refers to elliptical galaxies that formed in the early phase of the universe. These galaxies are particularly interesting because their creation only lasted a few hundred million years, which is relatively short in the cosmological time frame. The nuclear reactions in these newly formed stars produced an immense luminosity that can be detected to the present. These discoveries throw new light on the composition of the cosmic background radiation and indicate that a significant part of this radiation comes from elliptical galaxies.

The results of the researchers show that at least 1.4 percent of the background radiation could result from the creation of these galaxies. This has profound implications for the standard model of cosmology, which has so far been considered unchallenged. Measurements of the background radiation that have been carried out over the past few decades have pointed out small fluctuations within the radiation, which suggests an uneven distribution of the matter after the Big Bang.

The observations show that galaxies could form due to this unequal distribution. Denser areas of the material act acted as approximation points where stars formed under the influence of the gravity. Without this initial inequality, the development of galaxies, and thus also that of our universe, would be unlikely.

The question remains how exactly these measurements of the background radiation are, especially if elliptical galaxies have an impact on it. Kroupa points out that the newly gained knowledge potentially challenges the standard model and may need the history of the universe.