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ESO 40/07 - Associated Images

14 September 2007
For Immediate Release

Galaxy 'Hunting' Made Easy

Galaxies found under the Glare of Cosmic Flashlights

Images of the region around the 14 quasars where a previously hidden galaxy was detected via its hydrogen emission using the SINFONI instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope. The contours show the quasars, while the arrow represents 1 arcsecond (~ 26 000 light-years at the distance of these galaxies, which is roughly 7 700 million light-years). North is up, East is left, and the colour-coding reflects the relative hydrogen fluxes of the sources.

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Artist's impression showing a galaxy located between an observer on Earth and a background quasar that acts as a beacon. The light that travels from the quasar is intercepted by the foreground galaxy on its sightline, carrying out the galaxy's signature all the way to the observer. The sketch shows a side-on view of the system. The inset shows a face-on view of it, the same view captured (albeit with less detail) by the images taken with the SINFONI instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope (see ESO 40a/07).