Japanese scientists and the European Southern Observatory have detected the presence of oxygen from 13.1 billion light years away, where the team of astronomers have identified the origin of this element's signature from a galaxy known as SXDF-NB1006-2 with the help of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array telescope.

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Astronomers observe these distant galaxies in order to see what the universe looked like right after the Big Bang event, before the birth of heavier elements such as oxygen.

According to Akio Inoue from the Osaka Sangyo University, upon studying heavy elements in the universe, this can provide essential insight about the formation of the first stars and galaxies during this cosmic reionization phase.

The elements in the universe such as hydrogen, carbon, helium and oxygen were created during this cosmic reionization. Cosmic reionization is a phase where the universe began to reheat after a cooling period, as this cooling allowed cosmic material to merge with gas and dust clouds, that transformed into the first batch of stars in the universe. This energy then formed this ionization of neutral gas that formed hydrogen.

Apart from this, reionization of the universe scattered protons and electrons that absorbed the first light of the universe. This hydrogen reionization then allowed light to be absorbed by the now transparent universe, which is the key in forming what we know of the universe today including its motions. By detecting this ionized oxygen, this can provide clues for researchers to identify what cosmic objects triggered this reionization.

In SXDF-NB1006-2 however, the amount of oxygen in this galaxy is not that much since this ancient galaxy was one of the first ones to be created during this reionization process. Scientists say that this galaxy also holds several giant stars that emit some intense ultraviolet radiation.

According to astronomer Yoichi Tamura from the University of Tokyo, this is the first step in the understanding of what kind of cosmic objects caused cosmic reionization and our next high resolution observations can reveal how ionized oxygen is distributed along with its motion inside the primordial galaxy.

This new study is published in the journal Science.

Tagsoxygen galaxy, oxygen signature galaxy, big bang event, Universe, reionization