ESA's Herschel Space Observatory: Ancient Galaxy Producing Stars at Record Pace

Artist's impression of a starburst galaxy similar to the distant HFLS 3, which was churning out stars at a record-setting pace less than a billion years after the Big Bang.

CREDIT: ESA–C. Carreau

Astronomers peering into the early history of the universe have spotted perhaps the most productive star-forming galaxy ever found.

Known as HFLS 3, the young galaxy churns out about 3,000 new stars each year — more than 2,000 times as many as the Milky Way averages, and up to 20 times more than the number created by similar galaxies today.

The massive starburst galaxy existed only 880 million years after the Big Bang that created our universe 13.8 billion years ago, making HFLS 3 the most distant known pure starburst galaxy.

"One of the big surprises was how evolved this galaxy is in terms of its properties," stated principal investigator Dominik Riechers of Cornell University.

Dominik Riechers

Starburst galaxies exist today, burning through their stores of dust and gas to produce stars at a fantastic rate. But HFLS 3 is 15 to 20 times larger, and produces 15 to 20 times more stars, than similar current galaxies.

The difference is in the dust. Early in the history of the universe, when less dust had been converted to stars, galaxies such as HFLS 3 had access to more raw materials.

"The same processes are involved, but just 'supersized,'" Riechers said.

One of tens of thousands of early starburst galaxies detected by the European Space Agency's (ESA) Herschel Space Observatory, HFLS 3 attracted attention because it appeared very red among the rest, which indicated the possibility of greater distance.

Riechers and a team of international astronomers used a suite of instruments from around the world to study the distant structure.

"Finding this galaxy was like looking for a needle in a haystack," Riechers said.

H5N1 Avian Flu: Labs Producing Virulent Flu Strains

Engineered hybrids of H5N1 bird and H1N1 human flu strains have proven virulent in mice, raising the danger that a natural recombination would be deadly to humans.

For years, researchers have worried that H5N1 avian influenza would mix with human flu viruses, evolving into a form that keeps its current lethality but is far more contagious.

That hasn’t happened in the wild yet but the latest findings, published Feb. 22 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show how easily it can happen.

“Fortunately, the H5N1 viruses still lack the ability to transmit efficiently among humans.” However, the virus may soon be overcome this obstacle when it mixes with human flu strains. These are the findings of researchers led by University of Wisconsin virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka. “The next pandemic is inevitable and it will be more devastating than the last.”

Current strains of H5N1 have infected 478 people since 2003, and killed 286 of them. It’s has difficulty transmitting to humans. It requires close contact and exposure to an infected person, bird or animal.

In birds, however, H5N1 is far more contagious, and here the virus has killed tens of millions of fowl. Fortunately, cases have been concentrated in Africa and Eurasia, but as the swine flu pandemic demonstrated, any flu contagious to humans will quickly spread on a global scale. This is mainly thanks to air travel and the free movement of peoples across state boundaries.

Influenza viruses mutate and swap genes easily, with co-infections turning animals into mobile petri dishes. In 2008, hoping to learn more about how H5N1 might evolve, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention combined it with a common human flu strain.

The researchers engineered all 254 possible variants of hybridisation between the deadly H5N1 avian flu strain found in Borneo, and a, H1N1 human flu virus from Tokyo. They identified three strains that were both contagious and deadly, in mice.

A flu virus that kills mice won’t necessarily kill humans, but the results are very disturbing. All three killer hybrid strains possessed a protein taken from the human strain. Called PB2, the protein appeared to help the virus survive in the mice’s upper respiratory tract. As of now, bird flu stays in the lower respiratory tract, where it’s less likely to be casually transmitted.

Although the recent H1N1 pandemic has not proved to be as lethal as originally feared, it certainly exposed how unprepared the world is for new influenza strains. At the same time it also exposed the ability of pharmaceutical companies to frighten the WHO, governments and politicians into spending $Millions to stockpile ineffective vaccines.

In May, Hong Kong University virologist Yi Guan, best known for finding the animal origin of SARS, was asked by Science Insider about the possibility of H5N1 and swine flu mixing.

“If that happens, I will retire immediately and lock myself in a sealed laboratory", said Guan. "But, historically the Chinese mainland would be the most likely source of such a virus."

"Unfortunately, in such a situation, the imposed cover-up by local authorities would mean that the virus will have spread with a high rate of cross-infection and will have escaped globally, even before we are alerted to it's existance. We will not be alerted until it has spread to the Western world and many people have become infected and died."