Indian researcher names 12.6-billion-year-old galaxy structure after Manipur’s Loktak Lake
An Indian astrophysicist in Japan has named a newly discovered massive galaxy structure the “Loktak Protocluster,” after Manipur’s Loktak Lake, to “immortalise” the state’s identity in the cosmos.
Dr. Ronaldo Laishram, 29, a postdoctoral researcher at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), led the international team. The structure existed 12.6 billion years ago, when the universe was only 1.2 billion years old. The findings were published this month in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
A protocluster is an early-stage galaxy cluster — a “city of galaxies” still forming under gravity. The Loktak Protocluster consists of four interconnected concentrations of galaxies. Laishram said the structure resembled the floating phumdis on Loktak Lake, which inspired the name.
The team studied it using the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The research began around October 2024.“Protoclusters are the construction sites of the most massive structures in the present-day Universe,” Laishram said. “Finding such a clearly organized system at this early epoch gives us a rare chance to study how environment affects galaxy growth in the young Universe.”
Laishram, from Khangabok in Manipur’s Thoubal district, said Loktak is the “mirror and lifeline of Manipur” and he wanted to “put Manipur, and Loktak, in the story of the universe itself.” He considered other names like Taoroinai, a legendary serpent, but chose Loktak after seeing the four galaxy groups linked together.
