Two Maltese among astronomers developing novel way to see early universe

A team of astronomers - including two Maltese astrophysicists - has developed an innovative method that will allow them to ‘see’ through the fog of the early universe and detect light from the first stars and galaxies.

The first observations have just been reported in the journal Nature Astronomy and released on Thursday evening.

The University of Cambridge, in collaboration with Dr Alessio Magro and Prof Kristian Zarb Adami, has developed a methodology allowing them to observe and study the first stars through the clouds of hydrogen that filled the universe about 378,000 years after the Big Bang.

Stars spring up out of the darkness – artist concept. Photo: Nasa/JPL-Caltech

Their method will improve the quality and reliability of observations from radio telescopes looking at this unexplored key time in the development of the universe. 

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) - a next-generation telescope due to be completed by the end of the decade - will likely be able to make images of the earliest light in the universe, but for current telescopes the challenge is to detect the cosmological signal of the stars through the thick hydrogen clouds.

The signal astronomers aim to detect is...