Astronomers discover the farthest Gamma-ray emitting active galaxy

Astronomers have discovered a new active galaxy, identified as the farthest gamma-ray emitting galaxy that has so far been stumbled upon.

Daily Current Affairs Quiz 2021

This active galaxy called the Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 (NLS1) galaxy, which is about 31 billion light-years away, opens up avenues to explore more such gamma-ray emitting galaxies.

Scientists from ARIES, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology (DST) studied around 25,000 luminous Active galactic nuclei (AGN) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), a major optical imaging and spectroscopic survey of astronomical objects in-operation for the last 20 years.

They found a unique object that emits high-energy gamma rays located at a high redshift. They identified it as a gamma-ray emitting NLS1 galaxy, which is a rare entity in space.

The new gamma-ray emitting NLS1 was formed when the Universe was only about 4.7 billion years old as compared to its current age of about 13.8 billion years.