Institute of research into the fundamental laws of the Universe

Thanks to a unique combination of observations made by the world's largest telescopes, an international collaboration led by CEA researchers has detected the farthest galaxy cluster ever discovered in the Universe. Going back 11.5 billion years in the past of the Universe, the snapshot of this cluster reveals 17 galaxies in full "star outbreaks" (large stellar formation activity). This is the first time that such a structure, captured at the time of its formation, is detected so far away, when the Universe was "only" 2.5 billion years old. These results, obtained thanks to the expertise of the CEA, notably associated with the Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM), the CNRS, and the Université Paris Diderot, are published in The Astrophysical Journal, and open up a field of understanding on the way the Universe was structured in its youth.

Click here to read the press release in French on the CEA website