Newly discovered galaxy cluster could rewrite our understanding of the universe, experts say - as it burns five times hotter than expected

A newly discovered galaxy cluster could rewrite our understanding of the cosmos, as scientists spot 'something the universe wasn’t supposed to have’.

Researchers found that the cluster was burning five times hotter than expected just 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang.

Astronomers had thought that such extreme temperatures would only be possible in more mature, stable galaxy clusters that formed later in the universe's life.

This hot 'baby cluster' could suggest that the earliest moments of the universe were far more explosive than previously thought.

Scientists believe that the unexpected heat might be the product of three supermassive black holes hidden in the depths of the cluster.

Co-author Dazhi Zhou, a PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia, says: 'We didn’t expect to see such a hot cluster atmosphere so early in cosmic history.

'In fact, at first I was sceptical about the signal as it was too strong to be real.

'But after months of verification, we’ve confirmed this gas is at least five times hotter than predicted, and even hotter and more energetic than what we find in many present-day clusters.'

Galaxy clusters are some of the largest objects in the universe that can be held together under their own gravity.

They are enormous collections of individual galaxies, invisible dark matter, and superheated clouds of gas.

In the spaces between the galaxies, gas is heated into plasma that can reach hundreds of millions of degrees and shines brightly in the X-ray spectrum.

Scientists had thought this 'intracluster medium' was heated by gravitational interactions between galaxies as an immature, unstable cluster matures and collapses inward to a stable state.

However, the researchers' new discovery, published in Nature, suggests that this model of evolution might not be correct.

Using a group of telescopes known as the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the researchers looked 12 billion years into the past.

At this time, the galaxy cluster dubbed SPT2349-56 was extremely immature, but already extraordinarily large for its age.

Its core extends more than 500,000 light-years across, roughly the size of the vast halo of matter and dark matter surrounding the Milky Way.

The cluster also contains more than 30 extremely active galaxies which produce stars over 5,000 times faster than our own galaxy.

However, when researchers used ALMA to measure the temperature of the intracluster medium, they found that it was far hotter than the models predicted for this time in the universe.

Scientists aren't entirely sure how the cluster came to be so much hotter than expected.

However, the researchers suggest that it could be related to the three recently discovered supermassive black holes in the cluster.

Supermassive black holes are the largest class of black holes, with masses at least 100,000 times greater than that of our sun.

Supermassive black holes are typically found in the hearts of galaxies, where they feed on gases and release huge quantities of X-ray radiation.

Co-author Professor Scott Chapman, of Dalhousie University who conducted the research while at the National Research Council of Canada, says that these black holes were 'already pumping huge amounts of energy into the surroundings and shaping the young cluster, much earlier and more strongly than we thought.'

This comes as astronomers are finding more supermassive black holes in the early universe that appear to have grown much faster than expected.

Last year, researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope spotted a 'little red dot' supermassive black hole that was actively growing inside a galaxy just 570 million years after the Big Bang.

Importantly, this black hole was much bigger than the size of the host galaxy would suggest.

This implies that black holes may have grown faster than the galaxies that hosted them in the early universe, even in relatively small galaxies.

Professor Chapman says that studying how these dynamics unfold is critical to explaining the universe around us today.

He says: 'Understanding galaxy clusters is the key to understanding the biggest galaxies in the universe.

'These massive galaxies mostly reside in clusters, and their evolution is heavily shaped by the very strong environment of the clusters as they form, including the intracluster medium.'