Cosmic Rose to Glowing Dog Bone: The 6 New Galaxies Discovered by NASA’s James Webb Space

Astronomers are in awe of the six new distant galaxies discovered by the James Web Telescope.

New Delhi: NASA’s James Webb Telescope has helped scientists discover galaxies that existed millions of years after the Big Bang. The James Webb telescope has discovered that the early universe had more than 700 galaxies, a finding not previously known. It has revealed that galaxies and stars formed and evolved much earlier than we knew.

“Preliminary indications have suggested that these candidate galaxies may be more massive and abundant than previously thought. However, without confirmed distances, their derived properties remain uncertain,” researchers said in their report.

Astronomers are impressed by the six new distant galaxies discovered as part of the study.

1. Record holder (JADES-GS-z13-0): According to a report from Nature, it holds the record for the most distant object known in the universe. The James Webb telescope discovered the galaxy, known as JADES-GS-z13-0, which is physically small. It spans 100 light-years and lies at a redshift of 13.2.
2. Glowing Dog Bone: This new distant galaxy likely has a redshift of 11.3, according to researchers. It is believed to have existed about 400 million years after the Big Bang.
3. Cosmic Rose: This galaxy has a redshift of 2.5 to 3.9. “It holds a special place in the team’s heart. Scientifically, it’s a wonderful demonstration of JWST’s leap forward in understanding how red the Universe is,” said Stacey Alberts, an astronomer at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
4. The Big Lumpy: At a redshift of 8, the clumpy structure of this galaxy has evolved. The galaxy measures about 3.7 kiloparsec (12,000 light-years).
5. GN-z11: It appears bright compared to the five other galaxies. The galaxy, called GN-z11, has a redshift of 10.6. According to observations from the James Webb telescope, it appears that the galaxy may contain some of the first stars that formed the universe. However, it is still not certain.
6. Inside out: “It’s the first time we’ve been able to quantify inside-out growth at such an early stage (of the universe),” Sandro Tacchella, an astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge, UK, said in the report.

Scientists led a study of galaxies that existed millions of years after the Big Bang. This was a pivotal time known as the Age of Reionization. For hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang, the universe was filled with a gaseous mist that made it opaque to energetic light. A billion years after the Big Bang, the fog had cleared and the universe became transparent, a process known as reionization.

Kevin Hainline of the University of Arizona in Tucson and his team used Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument and identified more than 700 candidate galaxies that existed when the universe was between 370 million and 650 million years old.

The sheer number of these galaxies exceeded predictions from observations made before Webb’s launch. The observatory’s outstanding resolution and sensitivity allow astronomers to see these distant galaxies better than ever before.

“In the past, the earliest galaxies we could see looked like tiny specks. And yet those smears represent millions or even billions of stars at the beginning of the universe,” Hainline said.