Press Releases 2006

ESO PR Photo 31a/06

Emission of the Galaxy BzK-15504 (SINFONI/VLT)

[Preview - JPEG: 512 x 400 pix - 168k]
[Normal - JPEG: 1024 x 800 pix - 667k]
[FullRes - JPEG: 3027 x 2364 pix - 4.4M]

H-alpha line emission of the galaxy BzK-15504, at cosmological redshift of 2.38, corresponding to a time of 3 billion years after the Big Bang. The colours show whether the ionised gas is moving away from us (red), toward us (blue) or is stationary (green), relative to the overall rest frame of the galaxy. These data, obtained with SINFONI and adaptive optics (resulting in a resolution of 0.15", or 4000 light years at the distance of the galaxy), show for the first time very clearly the gas motions in such a distant galaxy in the Early Universe. The galaxy appears to be a disc, like our Milky Way, and rotates at 230 km/s about the yellow axis, which is centred on the nucleus of the galaxy (white cross).

ESO PR Photo 31b/06

Maps of BzK-15504 (SINFONI/VLT)

[Preview - JPEG: 517 x 400 pix - 243k]
[Normal - JPEG: 1033 x 800 pix - 764k]
[Full Res - JPEG: 2508 x 1943 pix - 3.7M]

Animated GIF scanning through all channels

SINFONI maps of H-alphaline emission in BzK-15504, separated in 65 km/s bins of Doppler velocity (marked at the bottom left of each image) and centred on the systemic cosmological redshift of the galaxy (z=2.38). North is up and East is to the left, and a bar marks the angular scale of 0.5". The high resolution, spectrally resolved images show with exquisite clarity that star formation in this distant galaxy occurs in spectacular luminous complexes (bright spots) and that gas is funnelled at large rates into the nuclear region, forming a dense stellar bulge there. Over time, this system may transform into a compact, dense elliptical galaxy.

ESO PR Video 31/06

Galaxies under the microscope

[Quicktime - MOV: 160 x 120 pix - 39M]
[Quicktime - MOV: 320 x 240 pix - 52M]
[AVI: 320 x 240 pix - 78M]