By Eyizle Ene-Okon
3:37pm
It quite rare for a galaxy to be named after a footballer, as Real
Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo has always been out of this world and
that fact got established when astronomers named a galaxy CR7.
The CR7 moniker precedes Ronaldo’s time at Madrid, but goes to his
time at United. The nickname is a composition of his initials and
shirt number, which he used at both the Old Trafford and Santiago
Bernabeu.
However, the nickname now has astronomical symbolism when the European
Southern Observatory (ESO) named a galaxy in honour of the Portuguese
international, describing it as the brightest to be found in the early
universe.
“Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have discovered by far
the brightest galaxy yet found in the early Universe and found strong
evidence that examples of the first generation of stars lurk within
it,” the group explained.
“These massive, brilliant, and previously purely theoretical objects
were the creators of the first heavy elements in history – the
elements necessary to forge the stars around us today, the planets
that orbit them, and life as we know it.
“The newly found galaxy, labelled CR7, is three times brighter than
the brightest distant galaxy known up to now.”
The CR7 epithet, in astronomical terms, stands for Cosmic Redshift 7 –
a method of measuring a celestial body’s place along the timescale of
the universe.
The discovery came after a new expansive study of the skies – aimed at
discovering ancient stars known as Population III stars, which were
formed very early after the Big Bang – and it is hoped CR7 will help
scientists understand how early elements came into being.
“Those stars were the ones that formed the first heavy atoms that
ultimately allowed us to be here. It doesn’t really get any more
exciting than this,” said team leader David Sobral.
Source: spicy blizz
