Lyman-break galaxy

Okay kiddo, have you ever seen a rainbow? You know how it has lots of different colors? Well, scientists use colors to study things that are very far away in space, like galaxies.

A lyman-break galaxy is a special kind of galaxy that is very far away from us. When scientists look at these galaxies, they use colorful pictures to help them understand what they are made of. The colors show how much light is coming from the galaxy at different wavelengths.

Now, the lyman-break galaxy got its special name because it's missing a certain color. It's like if your rainbow only had red and blue but no green. This missing color of light is called the Lyman-alpha line, and it's not visible to our eyes.

But why is it missing? That's because it's been absorbed by the gas that surrounds the galaxy. This gas is like a shield that stops the light from getting to us. Scientists can detect this missing color and use it to study the galaxies and the gas around them.

So, when scientists see a galaxy missing the Lyman-alpha line, they know it's a lyman-break galaxy. These galaxies are very important to study because they are some of the earliest and most distant galaxies in the universe! Pretty cool, right?