The James Webb Space Telescope continues to explore deeper space and time than any other observatory. The instrument is now discovering a galaxy with a structure similar to our own Milky Way, 11 billion light-years away, challenging our understanding of galaxy formation.
In the modern universe, about two-thirds of all spiral galaxies are ‘bar-like’, with a large central bar-like structure. It consists of gas and dust that flows from the outer part of the galaxy into its core, fueling star formation and the growth of supermassive black holes.
“Bars solve the galactic supply chain problem,” said study author Shardha Jogee. “Just as raw materials need to be transported from ports to inland factories where new products are manufactured, bars forcefully transport gas to central regions, where gas is typically 10 to 100 times more powerful than in space. It will be rapidly transformed into a new star at speed.The rest of the galaxy.”
These bars are commonly thought to appear when spiral galaxies reach a certain stage in their evolution, a sort of “maturity.” Research has shown that the proportion of galaxies with bars decreases with time, and it was thought that up to a certain point there should have been no galaxies with bars in the universe. Develop.
NASA/CEERS/University of Texas at Austin
But now the James Webb Space Telescope has shaken that assumption. The observatory is designed to look back into the past more than ever before thanks to its large primary mirror, and its infrared instrument allows us to peer into the dust that obscures visible-light telescopes like Hubble.
For the new study, Webb examined a series of distant galaxies previously observed by Hubble to see if new details of their structure could be detected. A few bars that looked like were clearly visible.
“I took one look at these data and said, ‘I’m deleting everything else!’” says Jogee. “Bars barely visible in the Hubble data pop out in the JWST image, and his view of the underlying structure of the galaxy demonstrates the tremendous power of the JWST.”
Kicker? These galaxies are 8 to 11 billion light-years away, meaning they grew to that advanced stage much sooner than was thought. This could change our understanding of galaxy evolution in general.
NASA/CEERS/University of Texas at Austin
In future papers, the team plans to test different models of galaxy evolution to find the best one for new observations.
This research Astrophysics Journal Letter.
Source: University of Texas
