The James Webb Telescope may have found the most distant galaxy ever observed
A week after revealing the first images of the James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful telescope ever built, it was already able to find the most distant galaxy ever observed, which existed 13.5 billion years ago.
Named GLASS-z13, it seems to us that it was only about 300 million years after the Big Bang, 100 million years younger than the previous record observed, said Rohan Naidoo of the Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics from Harvard University.
He is the lead author of the study of data decomposition from James Webb’s early observations, which is currently underway. This data is posted online to all astronomers on the planet.
Paper Day! “Two remarkably luminous galactic candidates at z ~ 11-13 detected only by the Remarkable Space Telescope”. T… https://t.co/BmU5AGvYYF
One of the main tasks of this new telescope is to observe the first galaxies that formed after the Big Bang, which occurred 13.8 billion years ago. In astronomy, seeing far is like going back in time. Sunlight, for example, takes eight minutes to reach us, and so we see it as it was eight minutes ago. By looking as far as possible, we can thus see things as they were billions of years ago. Light was emitted from this galaxy 13.5 billion years ago.
red round shape
This study has not yet been reviewed, but is published as Prepress, for quick access to the expert community. Rohan Naidu said it has been submitted to a scientific journal for publication soon. But already many astronomers enthusiastically commented on this discovery on social networks.
“Records in astronomy are already faltered.”And the chirp Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science. “Yes, I tend to praise only peer-reviewed scientific results. But this is very promising!”Added from the study. Another research team came to the same conclusions, according to Rohan Naidoo “Give confidence”.
The galaxy was observed by the James Webb instrument NIRCam, and it was discovered on the so-called “deep field”that is, a wider image taken with a long exposure time to detect faint flares.
James-Webb’s peculiarity is to work in infrared only. Stretches the light emitted from the oldest objects and “shyness” All the way, passing through this wavelength invisible to the human eye. And to paint a picture of this galaxy, the data was so “Translator” In the visible spectrum: It then appears as a red round shape, somewhat blurred, and white in the center.
‘There is still work’
In fact, the 20 or so researchers who took part in the study studied two galaxies, the other called GLASS-z11, which is less distant. They have amazing properties, for the few we already know: “It looks so big.”according to Rohan Naidoo, from “Shortly after the Big Bang.” “It’s something we don’t really understand.”he added.
When exactly were they formed? Impossible to say at the moment. ‘There is still work’researcher said. He and his colleagues requested more observing time with the telescope to perform spectroscopic analyzes — a technique for characterizing a distant object by analyzing the collected light. This should confirm their dimension.
The James Webb Telescope was launched into space about six months ago. Worth $10 billion, it was placed 1.5 million kilometers from us. It has enough fuel to run for twenty years.
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