1996/08/01 by A. Omont, Alain Omont, Patrick Petitjean +7 · 6 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/382428a0
published as Nature, 382, 428-431, 1 August 1996 · 14 pages, 1 table, 2 figures, LaTex (aas2pp4.sty, psfig.sty), also available at http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~rgm
arxiv created 1996/08/01 · openalex publication_date 1996/08/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We report the detection of emission from dust and carbon monoxide in the radio-quiet quasar BR1202--0725 at redshift z=4.7. Maps of these emissions reveal two objects separated by a few arc seconds, which could indicate either the presence of a companion to the quasar or gravitational lensing of the quasar itself. Regardless of the precise interpretation of the maps, the detection of carbon monoxide confirms the presence of a large mass of molecular gas in one of the most distant galaxies known, and shows that conditions conducive to huge bursts of star formation existed in the early Universe.