How do stars develop in galaxies far away? By monitoring the radio waves from nearby galaxies, astronomers have put a lot of work into trying to find an answer to this question. The more distant a galaxy is from Earth, the weaker these signals get, making it more challenging for the most recent generation of radio telescopes to detect them.

Astronomers using an Indian radio telescope have discovered the furthest distant radio transmission from a galaxy ever. With the aid of cutting-edge telescope technology, this discovery paves the way for investigations into the early universe's secrets.

The galaxy SDSSJ0826+5630, which is 8.8 billion light-years away, is where the signal came from. This basically indicates that it is located closer to the Big Bang than any other radio astronomically discovered galaxy when an extremely hot and dense singularity exploded to create our constantly expanding cosmos.

Gravitational lensing, a spacetime ripple that drastically enlarges backgrounds for foreground objects, was the technique they employed.

The results of a study that was released this week in the Monthly Annals of the Royal Astronomical Society suggest that it may now be able to analyse galaxies that are located far from Earth. As radio waves travel away from Earth, their power decreases, making it challenging for present radio telescopes to detect them.

A galaxy generates a variety of radio frequency types, according to Arnab Chakraborty, a post-doctoral cosmology researcher at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. We knew very little about galaxies closer to Earth because the signal in question could only be detected up until now from a nearby galaxy.

Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope in Pune was utilised by researchers from Montreal and India to record the signal at the so-called 21 cm line wavelength.

The gravitational pull of a close, aligned galaxy bends and distorts the light from a distant star or galaxy, a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing and frequently referred to as 'nature's magnifying glass.' It appears that in this instance, the gravitational force has magnified and bent light from the distant source by a factor of 30.

The SDSSJ0826+5630 signal was produced when the universe was only 4.9 billion years old, but it took 8.8 billion years for it to reach the observatory due to cosmic expansion.

This discovery shows that it is possible to search for distant galaxies using the low-frequency radio telescopes of the present. According to Chakraborty, 'This will help us comprehend the composition of galaxies at far larger distances from Earth.'

The study of the sky at radio frequencies is known as radio astronomy. Light waves are emitted by stars, galaxies, and other cosmic events. Electromagnetic radiation includes visible light, radio waves, gamma rays, X-rays, and infrared. Astronomers must therefore utilise radio telescopes to detect and enlarge radio waves from space in order to completely comprehend what is out there.

These findings, according to the researchers, show that gravitational lensing can be used to observe distant galaxies under comparable circumstances. The use of low-frequency radio telescopes worldwide to examine the cosmic history of stars and galaxies has also brought up some intriguing new options.