We report the first detection of the lowest CO transition in a sub-millimetre bright galaxy and extremely red object ( ERO ) at z = 1.44 using the Very Large Array The Very Large Array ( VLA ) is operated by the National Radio Observatory , which is a facility of the National Science Foundation , operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities , Inc . .
The total J = { 1 } - { 0 } line luminosity of ERO J164502+4626.4 is ( 7 \pm 1 ) \times 10 ^ { 10 } K km s ^ { -1 } pc ^ { 2 } , which yields a total molecular gas mass of \sim 6 \times 10 ^ { 10 } \mbox { $M _ { \odot } $ } .
We also present a map of the 850- \mu m continuum emission obtained using SCUBA , from which we infer a far-IR luminosity and dust mass of L _ { FIR } \sim 9 \times 10 ^ { 12 } \mbox { $L _ { \odot } $ } 
and M _ { d } \sim 9 \times 10 ^ { 8 } \mbox { $M _ { \odot } $ } .
We find tentative evidence that the CO and sub-mm dust emission is extended over several tens of kpc .
If confirmed by high-resolution imaging , this implies that ERO J164502+4626.4 is not simply a high redshift counterpart of a typical Ultra Luminous Infrared Galaxy ( ULIRG ) .