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NASA Space

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Finds Most Distant Known Galaxy (nasa.gov) 42

Posted by BeauHD from the hide-and-seek dept.
With the help of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international team of astronomers discovered a galaxy at a redshift of 14.32, indicating it existed just 290 million years post-Big Bang. In a NASA release today, Stefano Carniani from Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy, and Kevin Hainline from the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, described how this source was found and what its unique properties tell us about galaxy formation: "The instruments on Webb were designed to find and understand the earliest galaxies, and in the first year of observations as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES), we found many hundreds of candidate galaxies from the first 650 million years after the big bang. In early 2023, we discovered a galaxy in our data that had strong evidence of being above a redshift of 14, which was very exciting, but there were some properties of the source that made us wary. The source was surprisingly bright, which we wouldn't expect for such a distant galaxy, and it was very close to another galaxy such that the two appeared to be part of one larger object. When we observed the source again in October 2023 as part of the JADES Origins Field, new imaging data obtained with Webb's narrower NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) filters pointed even more toward the high-redshift hypothesis. We knew we needed a spectrum, as whatever we would learn would be of immense scientific importance, either as a new milestone in Webb's investigation of the early universe or as a confounding oddball of a middle-aged galaxy.

In January 2024, NIRSpec observed this galaxy, JADES-GS-z14-0, for almost ten hours, and when the spectrum was first processed, there was unambiguous evidence that the galaxy was indeed at a redshift of 14.32, shattering the previous most-distant galaxy record (z = 13.2 of JADES-GS-z13-0). Seeing this spectrum was incredibly exciting for the whole team, given the mystery surrounding the source. This discovery was not just a new distance record for our team; the most important aspect of JADES-GS-z14-0 was that at this distance, we know that this galaxy must be intrinsically very luminous. From the images, the source is found to be over 1,600-light years across, proving that the light we see is coming mostly from young stars and not from emission near a growing supermassive black hole. This much starlight implies that the galaxy is several hundreds of millions of times the mass of the Sun! This raises the question: How can nature make such a bright, massive, and large galaxy in less than 300 million years?

The data reveal other important aspects of this astonishing galaxy. We see that the color of the galaxy is not as blue as it could be, indicating that some of the light is reddened by dust, even at these very early times. JADES researcher Jake Helton of Steward Observatory and the University of Arizona also identified that JADES-GS-z14-0 was detected at longer wavelengths with Webb's MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), a remarkable achievement considering its distance. The MIRI observation covers wavelengths of light that were emitted in the visible-light range, which are redshifted out of reach for Webb's near-infrared instruments. Jake's analysis indicates that the brightness of the source implied by the MIRI observation is above what would be extrapolated from the measurements by the other Webb instruments, indicating the presence of strong ionized gas emission in the galaxy in the form of bright emission lines from hydrogen and oxygen. The presence of oxygen so early in the life of this galaxy is a surprise and suggests that multiple generations of very massive stars had already lived their lives before we observed the galaxy.

All of these observations, together, tell us that JADES-GS-z14-0 is not like the types of galaxies that have been predicted by theoretical models and computer simulations to exist in the very early universe. Given the observed brightness of the source, we can forecast how it might grow over cosmic time, and so far we have not found any suitable analogs from the hundreds of other galaxies we've observed at high redshift in our survey. Given the relatively small region of the sky that we searched to find JADES-GS-z14-0, its discovery has profound implications for the predicted number of bright galaxies we see in the early universe, as discussed in another concurrent JADES study (Robertson et al., recently accepted). It is likely that astronomers will find many such luminous galaxies, possibly at even earlier times, over the next decade with Webb. We're thrilled to see the extraordinary diversity of galaxies that existed at Cosmic Dawn!
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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Finds Most Distant Known Galaxy More

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Finds Most Distant Known Galaxy

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  • 300 miillion years old (Score:4, Insightful)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Friday May 31, 2024 @04:59AM (#64512481) Journal
    It's so far away that the universe was only 300 million years old when the light was emitted. Kind of amazing that a galaxy 1,600 light years across could for so early.

    Then again, it's kind of amazing that the universe formed too, and that still happened.

    • > amazing that a galaxy 1,600 light years across could [form] so early.

      Something is probably wrong with the big bang theory as it is. Webb has found too many things that shouldn't be there in the early universe, at least not in high quantity.

      It's possible most of our (observable) universe came from an expanding bubble in an existing universe. It's the "Kangaroo Theory" where we are a baby kangaroo in the pocket of the mother, or at least came from the pocket. Webb is perhaps spotting parts of the mother

    • I personally doubt that we have the correct age of the universe nailed down. It might be much older than we guess at.

      How do we know what wavelengths the electromagnetic radiation of the big bang expelled? and we can't be sure that the CMBR doesn't contain radiation with so low energy density that we can't measure it.

      I do buy into the big bang theory and an expanding universe. I don't buy into an accelerated expansion, yet.

  • How do they know it's the universe expanding and not just that stuff on the other side of the big bang was flung away really fast?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Technically, there is no "other side" of the Big Wang (Xi Jinping has now claimed China owns it as an extension of the S. China Sea). The red shift in light from distant objects, all at the same distance scale from the Earth, is the same. And the red shift goes up the farther out you look.

    • Re:How (Score:5, Informative)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Friday May 31, 2024 @09:01AM (#64512823)

      How do they know it's the universe expanding and not just that stuff on the other side of the big bang was flung away really fast?

      Stuff wasn't "flung away" by the BB. That is a common but fundamental misunderstanding of Lambda-CDM cosmology [wikipedia.org].

      By every measurement, the universe is isotropic.

      No matter where we point our telescopes, there's the same mixture of galaxy types, gas clouds, and voids, with the same mixture of orientations, spectrums, and velocities.

    • Check out the theory of "inflation."

  • One more coffin (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    in the nail of the modern physics then. The "bigbang" theory based on the predictions of the so-called "standard model" claims that the first stars appeared 400M years after the big bang, and galaxies developed much, much later... Fake news all around.

    • in the nail of the modern physics then. The "bigbang" theory based on the predictions of the so-called "standard model" claims that the first stars appeared 400M years after the big bang, and galaxies developed much, much later... Fake news all around.

      No, it merely means we've got something wrong. Business as usual in the world of science.

      • regrettably, as the comment below from an anon, many people don't understand that in order to find 'new science' you first need to find the places where 'accepted science', that had been working for the last many years, which is why it was accepted, is wrong in some small detail. and believe me when I say that an error of maybe 120 million years out of a lifespan of maybe 14 billion years, is a small delta, noteworthy, but still small.

        • Yeah, science is at its most interesting when we discover something that doesn't fit in.

          • exactly. That is mostly what we do in Physics, try to get a better understanding of how the universe/multiverse works. Me, personally, I never try to speak ill of our forebears, like Newton for example, they were correct, for their time... Once we understand everything about how the universe/multiverse works, well then, we are done except for teaching others. Frankly, I don't believe we will be done in the next 1000 years, but I also sort of believe that we never will be done.

            • Frankly, I don't believe we will be done in the next 1000 years, but I also sort of believe that we never will be done.

              I like to think that reality is in some sense fractal, so that there isn't a bottom to it.

              • well, that is possible i believe, I haven't studied string theory, but I think that might be one of the extra dimensions they speak of.

                I just think our universe/multiverse is so full of beautiful/interesting that if I lived to be 3000 I believe i would still be learning about it and I would hate to think that in some far distant future, people would no longer be finding new things to explore/wonder/enjoy in it. of course there will probably always be the various Baron Harkonnens in the universe/multivers

              • It's turtles, all the way down.

  • How much time according to a model? (Score:3)

    by munehiro ( 63206 ) on Friday May 31, 2024 @07:14AM (#64512597) Journal

    If we take a bunch of gas, and let it coalesce according to current gravitational models, how much time do we need to wait until we get the first galaxy?

    Because if it takes longer than 290 million years, then we definitely have a problem somewhere.

    • He was likely not correct either about much, beyond the fact that the standard model (big bang) explains nothing correctly. Fact is no one has any clue, at all, about the size of the universe, or the origin of the universe. Except me.

      Here is my theory, after studying this since I was 4 years old, when I had my parents buy me my first astronomy book: Our universe is the inside of a black hole. The black hole is very big, it is the size and mass/energy of our universe. It is expanding (and increasing mas

        • Thanks. I'm completely serious. I played with a lot of the math 20 years ago and it all worked. I described this to an astronomy professor at the time, and got laughed at. Literally he laughed at me. Whatever. The only useful contribution institutionalized astronomy makes anyway, is to funnel my taxes into something more interesting than crackhead welfare moms. I'm too old to give a shit any more, anyway.

      • He was likely not correct either about much, beyond the fact that the standard model (big bang) explains nothing correctly. Fact is no one has any clue, at all, about the size of the universe, or the origin of the universe. Except me.

        Here is my theory, after studying this since I was 4 years old, when I had my parents buy me my first astronomy book: Our universe is the inside of a black hole. The black hole is very big, it is the size and mass/energy of our universe. It is expanding (and increasing mass) at the rate it is consuming (something) on the other side of the event horizon. The cosmic background radiation we see, is what emerges on our side of the event horizon from this consumption. It is sad we can never know what is on the other side of the event horizon. It is amazing we know what is inside at least one black hole, ours. It is possible to calculate the rate at which our black hole, our universe is spinning. Of course I have no academic standing in the field, but someone with standing can read this and run with it. Please credit my post. Thanks.

        Though brief, I quite enjoy the theory you present as a possibility. Though theoretical astrophysics gets real out-there sometimes, this is at least as believable as the "our universe is just a holographic projection running as a naturally occurring simulation inside the event horizon of a giant black hole in a much larger universe/multiverse filled with dozens of other such entities" theory. If you've been studying it since you were four, and you seem capable of writing in a fairly coherent fashion, maybe

      • There are countless oddball theories like this that seem correct at first glance, and none have held up under detailed scrutiny. Sounds like you were on the right academic path at some point. Why didn't you continue?

        • I went into another field, one I thought was a larger net contribution to humanity. Of course that field has since been captured by the moneymen, and now exists only to enrich them further. It's our world. Whatever.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            was a larger net contribution to humanity

            Yeah, me too: I sell cigarettes. Problem is, customers aren't dying fast enough.

          • What field?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by znrt ( 2424692 )

        It is expanding (and increasing mass) at the rate it is consuming (something)

        so where did all that mass go? it should be squeezing us pretty hard in our hole universe, yet it seems to be mostly empty space.

        wait, i get it. it's getting munched up by our sub black holes. it's black holes all the way down, and each one spawns a new universal constant for density tending to infinite emptiness! the buddhists were right all along!

        chatgp absolutely needs to know about this.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by rbenson ( 903023 )

        One problem with the hypothesis that the observable universe is contained within a black hole's event horizon is that it would give the universe a preferred direction.
        Moving towards the black hole would require less energy than moving away from it.
        We observe objects orbiting various other objects, e.g. moons, planets, stars, galaxies, galaxy clusters, and there does not appear to be an overall preferred orbital direction.

        A potential workaround would be if the 'black hole' existed in some higher dimensional

        • Interesting, I missed that paper. I was super busy the year came out. Just glancing at it, it seems as plausible as anything else. Anyone who's ever read Flatland starts to speculate about such stuff. lol

        • Perhaps the overall direction doesn't exist at the scale of our observable piece of the universe, but does in a scale so large we will never observe it.

          Or maybe I'm talking completely out of my ass. Yeah.

        • There does not necessarily have to be a point singularity within the event horizon. We do not know the "shape" of space and time inside a black hole, but due to its almost complete separation from our universe, there is a lot of mathematical freedom. The event horizon could be it. If one looks at the fractal dimensionality of our universe, it seems to have rapidly gone from a 3 to a 2 between the big bang and the CMB. The event horizon of a black hole is also a 2. It hurts my brain to think about a pos

  • I was curious about how redshift is measured, especially how it was unitless, so I looked it up on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].

    So the equation, stated in (sort of) English, is "redshift is the ratio of the observed wavelength less the emitted wavelength to the emitted wavelength". Or "the ratio of the difference of observed and emitted wavelength to the emitted wavelength". You can also calculate it with frequencies, of course.

  • I know it is not the case, based upon evidence. But I like to think of the universe as a large Möbius Strip type thing. When you view these old galaxies you are actually viewing galaxies that are closer but the light wrapped around and you are looking at yourself :)

    • It will happen, but not in visible wavelengths and not for another few billion years. light from 14billion years ago have only traveled 280 degrees around the universe so far, and each degree will take longer the older the universe gets.

  • There is no way that this galaxy could have formed in 300 million years due to the richness in elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. Couple this with the fact that we have found large structures in areas of the galaxy that disprove that it is not isotropic, we have a situation where the evidence is showing both that the reason for inflation to exist is going away, at the same time that evidence FOR inflation is lacking in almost all early snapshots of the universe coming from the james webb telescope. Couple that with the fact that general relativity predicts the location of exactly zero stars in the galaxy, unless you create a whole bunch of invisible shit, and we've got no good theories.

    • But if you add dark matter (though we've found none of it), dark energy (though we've no idea what it is or where it comes from), and I now predict "dark time", this shows the standard model is working perfectly well. We just need more funds, a bigger particle accelerator, and more time. . :-)

      As Planck (strictly, didn't say, it's a paraphrase) said, "Science progresses one funeral at a time".

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