NASA congratulates Indian astronomers on Star Galaxy discovery

 

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has congratulated Indian astronomers on the discovery of one of the farthest Star galaxies in the universe estimated to be located 9.3 billion lightyears away from Earth. NASA described this discovery as an effort that will further humankind's understanding.

NASA's Public Affairs Officer Felicia Chou stated, "Science is a collaborative effort around the world, and discoveries like these help further humankind's understanding of where we come from, where are we going, and are we alone." India's first Multi-Wavelength Space Observatory "AstroSat" detected extreme-UV light from a galaxy located 9.3 billion lightyears away from Earth. The galaxy called AUDFs01 was discovered by a team of astronomers led by Dr Kanak Saha from the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) Pune.

India's AstroSat/UVIT was able to achieve this unique feat because the background noise in the UVIT detector is much less than one on the Hubble Space Telescope of US-based NASA. Director of IUCAA, Dr Somak Ray Chaudhury, stated that the discovery offers a very important clue to how the dark ages of the Universe ended and there was light in the Universe. "We need to know when this started, but it has been very hard to find the earliest sources of light," he said. India's first Space Observatory AstroSat, was launched by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on September 28, 2015.