"Galactic Growth Rate Unveiled by Heat Spots from 12 Billion Years Ago"

Astronomers have used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope to draw a temperature map of the dust within one of the oldest spiral galaxies in the universe, revealing two distinct heat sources: a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy and the heat generated by newly-formed stars in the surrounding rotating disk. The research provides new insights into how fast the galaxy is growing and a clearer picture of how galaxies and central massive black holes form and grow in the early universe.