AN ORBITING observatory has captured young galaxies forming stars at a phenomenal rate. The light left the galaxies, 7 billion light years away, when the Universe was roughly half its current age.
Michael Rowan-Robinson of Imperial College in London led a team of European astronomers who focused the Infrared Space Observatory on a small patch of sky. The results showed that many distant galaxies are up to a hundred times brighter in the infrared than at visible wavelengths. Much of the infrared light comes from dust clouds that have hot young stars hidden inside.
This confirms astronomers' suspicions that the star formation is far more rapid than visible observations suggest, says Rowan-Robinson. "Perhaps 80 per cent of the star formation is hidden from normal view and is only visible in the infrared."
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content.