discovered A team of researchers from the Max-Planck-Institute, the first after the big Bang, the resulting molecule. The evidence could help to understand the early development of the universe, according to the Team led by Rolf Güsten from the Bonn Max-Planck-Institute for radio astronomy in the journal Nature. It had looked for decades after the helium hydride ion.
helium hydride ion, the first molecules that formed after the big Bang, about 13.8 billion years in the universe. Although the existence of an Ion, a compound consisting of ionized hydrogen and Helium, as early as in 1925 it was shown in the laboratory, it remained in space for a long nowhere to be found. “There have been simply no appropriate detectors,” said astrophysicist Güsten.
Far more than ten years, his colleagues had, and he conducted research to develop a high-resolution spectrometer, which can detect individual infrared radiation of the molecule in space. From one to the flying star converted Boeing from the waiting 747 were finally made the crucial measurements. The molecule was located in a planetary nebula, about 3,000 light-years from earth, seen.
“We search for the helium hydride ion had long been on the Agenda. So something Significant, such as the first molecule of the universe awakens, of course, the scientific ambition,” said Güsten. The researchers hope the discovery, to be able to chemical reactions in the early phase of the universe shortly after the big Bang in the future, better model.
