Overview
- Zhou and colleagues report in Nature a clear Sunyaev–Zeldovich detection from SPT2349-56, observed just 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang.
- ALMA data indicate hot electrons with temperatures exceeding 10 million Kelvin, far above expectations for such an early epoch.
- The proto-cluster’s dense core is roughly 500,000 light-years across, contains more than 30 active galaxies, and is forming stars over 5,000 times faster than the Milky Way.
- The team points to powerful activity from at least three supermassive black holes, together with extreme star formation, as plausible drivers of the overheating.
- The result challenges standard models that rely on slow gravitational heating, and the researchers plan follow-up studies and searches for similarly hot young clusters.