AstroSat: Indian Satellite Detects UV Light From Galaxy 9.3 Billion Light Years Away From Earth

The Inter-University Astronomy and Astrophysics Center (IUCAA) said on Monday that AstroSat, India's first multi-wavelength satellite, detected an intense ultraviolet (UV) light from a galaxy which is 9.3 billion light-years away from Earth.

A release from the Pune-based Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics said that "India's first multi-wavelength satellite, which has five unique X-ray and ultraviolet telescopes working in tandem, AstroSat, has detected extreme-UV light from a galaxy, called AUDFs01, 9.3 billion light-years away from Earth."

An international team of astronomers led by Dr Kanak Saha, IUCAA Associate Professor of Astronomy at the IUCAA made this new discovery and published on August 24th by "Nature Astronomy."

Scientists from India, France, Switzerland, the USA, Japan, and the Netherlands were a part of this team. The galaxy, located in the Hubble Extreme Deep Field, was observed by Saha and his team through AstroSat.

Previously, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) of NASA, a considerably larger than UVIT (UV imaging telescope), did not detect any UV emissions from this galaxy (with energy greater than 13.6 eV) because it is too faint.

Dr Saha quoted that, "AstroSat was able to perform this remarkable feat because the UVIT detector's background noise is much smaller than those on HST."

Dr Somak Raychaudhury, the director of IUCAA said, "It is a very interesting clue to how the dark ages of the universe ended and light existed in the world. We need to know when this began, but it was very difficult to locate the earliest sources of light. I am very proud that my colleagues made such a significant discovery."