It looks like we have a whole lot more cosmic neighbours than we thought. Astronomers led by the University of Nottingham’s Christopher Conselice have found that the observable Universe contains ten times as many galaxies as previously estimated. This takes the total number of galaxies in the cosmos from around 100 billion to more than a trillion.
The discovery came after the team painstakingly pieced together thousands of deep space images taken using the Hubble Space Telescope to form a 3D model of the evolution of the Universe. By applying cutting-edge mathematical models to the data they were able to infer the existence of galaxies that the current generation of telescopes cannot observe.
“It boggles the mind that over 90 per cent of the galaxies in the Universe have yet to be studied. Who knows what interesting properties we will find when we observe these galaxies with the next generation of telescopes,” said Conselice.
Also, by compiling data stretching back 13 billion years into the past, the team found that galaxies were not evenly distributed throughout the Universe’s history. There were many more galaxies when the Universe was in its infancy.
This result is powerful evidence that smaller galaxies merged together to create larger structures throughout the Universe’s history – the so-called ‘top-down’ model of the formation of the Universe.
Read more:
- New Hubble constant: Universe expanding faster than expected
- Hubble Space Telescope spots furthest galaxy
Follow Science Focus onTwitter,Facebook, Instagramand Flipboard