Mystery of ‘bright spot’ first discovered by Hubble, solved by NASA’s JWST
THE mystery behind a strange point of light first discovered by the Hubble telescope has been solved.
Thanks to NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the object has been confirmed to be a massive galaxy.
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The speck may look small in images, but researchers now think it is one of the largest galaxies from the early universe.
It is called Gz9p3 and is thought to have existed 510 million years after the Big Bang.
For context, the universe is now 13.8 billion years old.
The galaxy also helps highlight the difference between the Hubble Space Telescope and the JWST.
What seemed like a tiny speck to Hubble can be seen in more detail by the JWST.
The Gz9p3 galaxy is thought to contain billions of stars.
The finding also suggests that galaxies in the early universe grew much faster than previously thought.
Kit Boyett, a scientist at the University of Melbourne, worked on the study.
‘Just a few years ago, Gz9p3 appeared as a single point of light through the Hubble Space Telescope.
‘But using the James Webb Space Telescope we were able to observe this object as it appeared 510 million years after the Big Bang, about 13 billion years ago.
“We found that Gz9p3 was much more massive and mature than expected for such a young universe, which already contains several billion stars,” he says. explained.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the most powerful telescope ever built.
Technically, it looks back in time by scanning the light given off by extremely distant galaxies and stars.
This ability to time travel is based on the fact that even light has a speed limit.
The further you peer into space, the more time has passed since the light you are looking at made its way to you.
What is the Hubble Space Telescope?
This is what you need to know…
- The Hubble Space Telescope is a telescope that captures images while in space
- It was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and is still fully operational
- The advantage of Hubble is that it takes pictures from outside the Earth’s atmosphere
- This means that distortion is removed from the atmosphere, allowing for more accurate image capture
- NASA’s Hubble has captured some of the most detailed images of space ever seen
- The Hubble telescope was also able to accurately determine the rate at which the universe was expanding
- Hubble is also the only telescope designed for astronaut maintenance in space
- Five different missions have been launched to repair, upgrade or replace parts of the Hubble telescope
- It is believed that the Hubble Telescope could continue to operate until 2040
- But its successor – the James Webb Space Telescope – was already launched in December 2021