For the first time, new images of the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed galaxies with star bars at a time when the universe was a quarter of its present age.
Stellar bars are elongated features of stars that extend from the centers of galaxies to their outer disks. They funnel gas into the central regions, which drives star formation.
In a statement, the University of Texas said the finding of the barred galaxies will require scientists to refine their theories of galaxy evolution, noting that the Hubble Space Telescope had never detected bars at such young times.
For example, while the galaxy EGS-23205 appears blurry in a Hubble image, the Webb image is sharper, revealing a spiral galaxy with a clear star bar.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, JAN. 7 OF 1610, GALILEO DISCOVERED THE MOONS OF JUPITER
JWST’s power to map galaxies at high resolution and at longer infrared wavelengths than Hubble allows it to peer through the dust and reveal the underlying structure and mass of distant galaxies. This can be seen in these two images of the galaxy EGS23205, seen as it was around 11 billion years ago. In the HST image (left, taken with the near-infrared filter), the galaxy is little more than a disk-shaped blob obscured by dust and impacted by the glow of young stars, but in the corresponding infrared image middle of JWST (taken last summer), it is a beautiful spiral galaxy with a clear star bar.
(Credit: NASA/CEERS/The University of Texas at Austin)
The James Webb Space Telescope has a larger mirror, giving it greater light-gathering ability and allowing it to see further with higher resolution.
as observed infrared wavelengths longer than Hubbleyou can also see better through dust.
“I took one look at this data and said, ‘Let’s drop everything else!'” Shardha Jogee, a professor of astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin, said in a statement, describing the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science data. . Survey (CEERS).
Ball Aerospace Lead Optical Test Engineer Dave Chaney inspects six primary mirror segments, critical elements of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, prior to cryogenic testing in the X-ray Field & Cryogenic Facility on the Marshall Space Flight NASA Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
(Credit: NASA/MSFC/David Higginbotham)
Another barred galaxy, EGS-24268, is also from around 11 billion years ago, making two barred galaxies further back in time than previously discovered.
GREEN COMET WILL CROSS EARTH FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE NEANDERTHALS PRAYED FOR EARTH
The international group of researchers highlighted these galaxies and showed examples of four others from more than 8 billion years ago in an article in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Montage of JWST images showing six examples of barred galaxies, two of which represent the highest retrospective times identified and quantitatively characterized to date. The labels at the top left of each figure show the time back of each galaxy, ranging from 8.4 to 11 billion years ago (Gyr), when the universe was only 40% to 20% full. current age.
(Credit: NASA/CEERS/The University of Texas at Austin)
Two college students played a key role visually reviewing hundreds of galaxies and looking for those that could be analyzed with a more strict mathematical approach.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The bars also help in the formation of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies, funneling the gas part of the way.
The existence of these bars, the university said, challenges theoretical models, and the team will test different models in additional work.
“This discovery of early bars means that models of galaxy evolution now have a new path through bars to accelerate the production of new stars at early epochs,” Jogee said.
