A new telescope will allow us to see images of the first stars and galaxies in the Universe

A team of astronomers has developed a method that will allow themwatch” through the fog of the early Universe and detect the light of the first stars and galaxiesas published in the journal ‘Nature Astronomy’.

The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), have developed a methodology that will allow them to observe and study the first stars through the hydrogen clouds that filled the Universe some 378,000 years after the big Bang.

observe the birth of the first stars and galaxies it has been a goal of astronomers for decades, as it will help explain how the Universe evolved from the vacuum following the Big Bang to the complex realm of celestial objects we observe today, 13.8 billion years later.

Square Kilometer Array, the new telescope

The Square Kilometer Array (SKA), a next-generation telescope to be completed by the end of the decade, will probably be able to take images of the learliest light of Universebut for current telescopes the challenge is to detect the cosmological signal of the stars through the thick clouds of hydrogen.

The signal that astronomers are trying to detect is expected to be about 100,000 times weaker than other radio signals also coming from the sky, for example radio signals originating in our own galaxy.

The use of a radio telescope itself introduces distortions in the received signal, which can completely obscure the cosmological signal of interest. This is considered an extreme observational challenge in modern radiocosmology. These instrument-related distortions are often blamed as the main bottleneck in this type of observation.

The methodology that will allow us to observe the first stars

Now, the Cambridge-led team has developed a methodology to see through primordial clouds and other noise signals from the sky, avoiding the detrimental effect of distortions introduced by the radio telescope. Its methodology, which is part of the REACH experiment (Radio Experiment for the Analysis of Cosmic Hydrogen), will allow astronomers to observe the first stars through their interaction with hydrogen cloudsin the same way that we would deduce a landscape by looking at the shadows on the fog.

Their method will improve the quality and reliability of observations from radio telescopes studying this key and uncharted epoch in the development of the Universe. The first observations of REACH are expected to end of this year.