{"id":1252,"date":"2025-06-30T17:41:25","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T17:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/?p=1252"},"modified":"2025-06-30T17:41:25","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T17:41:25","slug":"most-distant-mini-halo-discovered-in-galaxy-cluster-10-billion-light-years-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/?p=1252","title":{"rendered":"Most Distant Mini-Halo Discovered in Galaxy Cluster 10 Billion Light-Years Away"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Astronomers have detected a vast cloud of energetic particles \u2014 a \u2018mini-halo&#8217; \u2014 around one of the most distant galaxy clusters, according to a new study. This mini-halo lies so far away that its light takes about 10 billion years to reach Earth, making it the most distant mini-halo ever discovered to date and doubling the previous distance record. The finding suggests that even in the very early universe, massive galaxy clusters were already filled with high-energy particles. The international research team was co-led by Julie Hlavacek-Larrondo and Roland Timmerman.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"faint-radio-glow-reveals-mini-halo\">Faint radio glow reveals mini-halo<\/h2>\n<p>According to the <a class=\"sp_lnk2\" href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2506.19901\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">study,<\/a> the team used the European Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) <a class=\"sp_lnk2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gadgets360.com\/tags\/radio-telescope\">radio telescope<\/a> to study the distant cluster SpARCS1049. LOFAR \u2013 a network of over 100,000 antennas spread across eight European countries \u2013 captured an extremely faint, diffuse radio signal surrounding the cluster. This glow stretches over a million light-years, revealing a giant \u201cmini-halo\u201d of high-energy particles and magnetic fields.<\/p>\n<p>Analysis showed the emission filled the <a class=\"sp_lnk2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gadgets360.com\/tags\/space\">space<\/a> between galaxies rather than coming from any single galaxy. The cluster&#8217;s light took 10 billion years to reach us, doubling the distance record for any known mini-halo. Co-leader of the reasearch Julie Hlavacek-Larrondo describes it as a vast cosmic ocean,in which entire galaxy clusters are constantly immersed in high-energy particles.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"origins-of-the-mini-halo\">Origins of the mini-halo<\/h2>\n<p>Two main theories exist for the mini-halo&#8217;s origin. One possibility is that powerful jets from supermassive black holes in the cluster&#8217;s galaxies have injected the energetic particles into space. However, it is unclear how such particles could travel far from the galaxy centers without losing their energy.<\/p>\n<p>Another idea is that collisions within the cluster&#8217;s hot gas create the particles. In this scenario, charged particles in the intracluster plasma crash at near-light speeds, producing the observed high-energy particles. These observations imply that massive clusters were already filled with energetic particles very early on. Future instruments like the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will find even fainter mini-halos, helping scientists study the roles of magnetic fields and cosmic rays in cluster evolution.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gadgets360.com\/science\/news\/most-distant-mini-halo-discovered-in-galaxy-cluster-10-billion-light-years-away-8776303#rss-gadgets-all\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Astronomers have detected a vast cloud of energetic particles \u2014 a \u2018mini-halo&#8217; \u2014 around one of the most distant galaxy clusters, according to a new study. This mini-halo lies so far away that its light takes about 10 billion years to reach Earth, making it the most distant mini-halo ever discovered to date and doubling [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/echo.grabonic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/SCI_4_full_1751022535706.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/echo.grabonic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}