James Webb Space Telescope helps researchers uncover early galaxies in ‘new chapter in astronomy’
James Webb Space Telescope helps researchers uncover early galaxies in ‘new chapter in astronomy’
In what James Webb Space Telescope researchers called “a whole new chapter in astronomy,” the observatory helped locate two early galaxies, one of which may contain the most distant starlight ever seen.
In a tweet, the international team said the unexpectedly bright galaxies could fundamentally change what is known about the first stars.
The research — two papers — was published last week in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
With just four days of analysis, the researchers found the galaxies in images from the Grism Lens-Amplified Survey from Space (GLASS) Early Release Science (ERS) program.
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The scientists determined that the galaxies existed between 450 and 350 million years after the big bang, although future spectroscopic measurements with Webb will help confirm these initial findings.
Two of the most distant galaxies ever seen are captured in these Webb Space Telescope images of the outer regions of the giant galaxy cluster Abell 2744. The galaxies are not inside the cluster, but many billions of light-years beyond. The galaxy labeled (1) existed only 450 million years after the big bang. The galaxy labeled (2) existed 350 million years after the big bang. Both are seen very close in time to the Big Bang, which occurred 13.8 billion years ago. These galaxies are small compared to our Milky Way, being only a few percent of its size, even the unexpectedly elongated galaxy labeled (1).
(Credits: Science: NASA, ESA, CSA, Tommaso Treu (UCLA); Image processing: Zolt G. Levay (STScI))
“Webb and I were amazed to find the most distant starlight anyone had ever seen, just days after Webb published his first data,” Rohan Naidu of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and MIT, told NASA about the more distant GLASS galaxy – called GLASS-z12 – which is believed to date from 350 million years after the big bang.
Naidu supervised one paper and Marco Castellano of the National Institute of Astrophysics in Rome, Italy, supervised the other.
The previous record holder was the galaxy GN-z11, which existed 400 million years after the big bang.
These two galaxies are believed to have existed 350 & 450 million years after the big bang (left to right). Unlike our own Milky Way, these first galaxies were small and compact, spherical or disc-shaped rather than large spirals.
(Credits: Science: NASA, ESA, CSA, Tommaso Treu (UCLA); Image processing: Zolt G. Levay (STScI))
“Although the distances of these early sources still need to be confirmed with spectroscopy, their extreme brightness is a real puzzle, challenging our understanding of galaxy formation,” said Pascal Ochs of the University of Geneva.
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The observations reportedly lead astronomers to a consensus that an unusual number of galaxies in the early universe were much brighter than expected, making it easier for the telescope to find even more early galaxies.
With just four days of analysis, the researchers found two extremely bright galaxies in the GLASS-JWST images.
(Credits: Science: NASA, ESA, CSA, Tommaso Treu (UCLA); Image processing: Zolt G. Levay (STScI))
“We found something that is incredibly fascinating. These galaxies should have started coming together perhaps only 100 million years after the Big Bang. “No one expected the dark ages to end so soon,” said Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz, a member of Naidu and Oesch’s team. “The primordial universe would have been only one-hundredth of its current age. It is a slice of time in the evolving cosmos of 13.8 billion years.”
Illingworth also told the agency galaxies may have been very massive – with many low-mass stars – or much less massive, with Population III stars.
NASA said, as long theorized, that these would be the first stars ever born composed only of primordial hydrogen and helium.
These two unexpectedly bright galaxies could fundamentally change what we know about the first stars.
(Credits: Science: NASA, ESA, CSA, Tommaso Treu (UCLA); Image processing: Zolt G. Levay (STScI))
No such extremely hot, primordial stars are visible in the local universe.
Galaxies are also unusually small and compact, spherical or disc-shaped rather than large spirals.
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This discovery of compact discs at such early times is only possible thanks to Webb’s much sharper infrared images.
He said that follow-up observations will confirm the galaxies’ distances – which are based on measurements of their infrared colors – and that spectroscopic measurements will provide an independent check.
“These observations just make your head explode. This is a whole new chapter in astronomy. It’s like an archaeological dig and suddenly you find a lost city or something you didn’t know about. It’s just mind-boggling,” Paola Santini, a writer at the newspaper run by Castellano, said.
