Experts Puzzled by Strange Space Blob

By Jeremy Hsu

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Space.

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(April 22) -- A newly found primordial blob may represent the most massive object ever discovered in the early universe, researchers announced Wednesday.

The gas cloud, spotted from 12.9 billion light-years away, could signal the earliest stages of galaxy formation back when the universe was just 800 million years old.

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Amazing Space Images

M. Ouchi, Carnegie Institution for Science / AFP

49 photos

This is a composite, false-color image of the biggest known object in the early universe -- a gas blob with a mass equal to that of 40 billion suns. The object is 12.9 billion light-years away (the bar at lower right represents 10,000 light-years). The blob could be a relic of the earliest stages of galaxy formation. Scientists named it Himiko, after an ancient Japanese queen.

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"I have never heard about any [similar] objects that could be resolved at this distance," said Masami Ouchi, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution in Pasadena, Calif. "It's kind of record-breaking."

A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, about 6 trillion miles. An object 12.9 billion light-years away is seen as it existed 12.9 billion years ago, and the light is just now arriving.

The cloud predates similar blobs, known as Lyman-Alpha blobs, which existed when the universe was 2 billion to 3 billion years old. Researchers named their new find Himiko, after an ancient Japanese queen with an equally murky past.

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