Tokyo-based astrophysicist Ronaldo Laishram has helped uncover one of the earliest known giant structures in the Universe and named it after a lake from his home state of Manipur, India.
Laishram, who grew up in Khangabok in Manipur’s Thoubal district, led an international team that discovered what is now known as the “Loktak Protocluster”, a massive gathering of young galaxies that existed around 12.6 billion years ago, when the Universe itself was only about 1.2 billion years old.
The discovery, made using the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, is now reshaping how scientists understand the early Universe.
What Laishram and his team of researchers found was unexpected.
Galaxies inside the crowded protocluster appeared physically larger than similar galaxies growing in emptier regions of space. Both groups were forming new stars at similar rates, but the galaxies inside the dense cosmic environment already possessed larger outer stellar structures associated with older stars.
In simple terms, where a galaxy “grew up” seemed to matter, even in the infancy of the Universe.
The findings challenge older assumptions that early galaxies evolved mainly because of their own internal properties such as mass or gas content. Instead, the study suggests the surrounding cosmic environment may have begun shaping galaxy growth far earlier than scientists previously believed.
The researchers say the discovery could help explain how some of the Universe’s largest cosmic structures emerged over billions of years.
The protocluster stretches across an enormous region of space and contains four distinct concentrations of galaxies linked together into one larger system.
For Laishram, that structure immediately reminded him of the phumdis — the floating circular islands of Loktak Lake.
“Loktak is not just a lake to us. It is the mirror and lifeline of Manipur,” he told The Indian Sun. “Growing up in Manipur, it was always there in our stories, our food, our identity.”
“When I discovered this protocluster, I always wanted to name something after my home Manipur,” he said. “And when I saw four separate concentrations of galaxies all linked together into one larger system, I immediately thought of Loktak.”
“The floating islands within one connected body of water. It was the most natural name I could give it.”
But for Laishram, the naming carried a meaning beyond science.
“Manipur is a place that often goes unheard,” he said. “It carries so much beauty, so much struggle, so much history that the world rarely sees.”
“I wanted to do something that placed Manipur not just on a map, but in the story of the Universe itself. That for me is the meaning of it. Loktak will now echo in scientific literature, in astronomy journals, in the cosmos, forever. And that feels like the greatest tribute I could offer to home.”
The findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Researchers caution that more protoclusters need to be studied before scientists can determine whether this environmental effect is universal across the early cosmos or unique to this particular structure.
For Laishram, the discovery is another remarkable milestone in a journey that began long before Tokyo and giant telescopes.
At 18, he discovered an asteroid and was honoured by former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. Today, alongside his research, he also runs the Manipur Astronomical Society to encourage young people in the state to engage with astronomy and space science.
Not bad, perhaps, for a boy from Khangabok who grew up looking at the night sky over Manipur and has now ensured that the name “Loktak” will travel across the Universe for generations to come.
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