Astronomers use James Webb Space Telescope They discovered what they say are three of the oldest galaxies in the universe, which were observed actively forming when the universe was only 400 million to 600 million years old.
In images from the James Webb Space Telescope, this galactic trio resembles mysterious red specks feeding on nearby helium and hydrogen. Over millions of years, it is these elements that support such galaxies as they grow, helping to shape them into the familiar ellipses and spirals we see across the galaxy. Universe.
“You could say these are the first ‘live’ images of Galaxy formation “Which we’ve seen before,” said the study’s lead author Casper Elm HeintzThe astrophysicist at the Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) in Denmark said, statement. “While James Webb previously showed us early galaxies in later stages of evolution, here we witness their birth, and thus the construction of the first star systems in the universe.”
Related: Astronomers have accidentally discovered a “dark” primordial galaxy that contains no visible stars
About 400,000 years after the Big Bang, our universe existed I preached in the dark. This happened after space It has cooled enough from its previously chaotic, scorching self to allow neutral hydrogen Atoms To form, which covered the universe in a dark, primordial fog. This fog cleared about a billion years after the Big Bang, when the light of the first generation of the universe appeared stars Flooded Universe. Recent research has shown that dwarf galaxies that formed during the universe’s first hundreds of millions of years were crowded Surprisingly abundant punch To drive this haze relief process.
“This is the process we see beginning in our observations,” study co-author Darach Watson said in a university statement. “These galaxies are like sparkling islands in a sea of neutral, opaque gas,” Heintz added in an article. NASA statement.
The legacy of the glittering cosmic trio
JWST’s powerful infrared eye was able to capture how light from the three observed galaxies is absorbed by large, dense reservoirs of neutral hydrogen gas around them – and this result also showed that the gas collects in and fuels the galaxies themselves. There is so much gas in the scene, in fact, that galaxies have yet to give birth to their first stars. For stars to be born, some parts of this primordial gas need to coalesce into extremely dense pockets, which then stimulate the formation of stellar objects. It would likely take millions of years for the first generation of stars to be born in these galaxies.
Astronomers do not yet know how the gas is distributed between the centers of the galaxies that also house it Supermassive black holesAnd also in the outskirts of the galaxy. Future observations will not only help solve this mystery, but could also reveal whether the gas tanks in these galaxies are made entirely of primordial hydrogen, or are actually filled with heavier elements.
“It’s a process that we will investigate further, so that hopefully we will be able to connect more pieces of the puzzle together,” said study co-author Gabriel Brammer from DAWN.
He pointed out that this discovery clarifies JWST It reaches beyond its primary mission objectives. “It was impossible to obtain images and data of these distant galaxies before Webb,” he said. “Plus, we had a good sense of what we would find when we first peeked at the data — we were almost making discoveries with the naked eye.”
The results are described in A paper Published May 23 in the journal Science.
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