Galaxies intriguingly similar to the Milky Way discovered near the beginning of the universe
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has detected galaxies similar to our Milky Way, which formed when the universe was only 25% of its current age.
The galaxies appear to be strikingly similar to our own, and these massive collections of gas, dust and stars are characterized by "stellar bars" (stellar bars), elongated features of stars extending from the centers of galaxies to their outer disks. It was found shortly after the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago.
Starbursts do exist in our galaxy, but this is the first time scientists have seen them in the early universe - a discovery that "will require astrophysicists to improve their theories of galaxy evolution."
"This early detection of the ribs means that models of galaxy evolution now have a new path through the ribs to accelerate the production of new stars at early ages," Sharda Jogi, a professor of astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin, said in a statement.
The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered ribs before, but never before in such young ages of the universe.
And the extra detail of the James Webb Telescope seems to have been the breakthrough needed to see the early galaxies in enough detail to detect those ribbons. Previous observations by the Hubble Space Telescope had shown EGS-23205 to be an interesting disc-shaped spot, but new images from James Webb, taken last summer, show it to be a beautiful spiral galaxy with distinct starbursts.
"The ribs, barely visible in the Hubble data, have just appeared in the James Webb Space Telescope image, showing the tremendous power of James Webb to see the underlying structure in galaxies," Sharda Joji said.
The team identified six prominent galaxies between eight billion and 11 billion years old.
"For this study, we're looking at a new system in which no one has used this kind of data or done this kind of quantitative analysis before, so everything is new," said Yuchan Kai-guo, the graduate student who led the data analysis. A forest no one has ever entered before.
Ribs are found in up to 65% of spiral galaxies, and influence the movement of stars, dust and gas.
Scientists believe that the ribs act as a funnel, drawing material into the bulge from the disk and promoting star formation.
The rods also help form supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies by directing the gas part of the way.
"Ribs solve the galactic supply chain problem," Cai Guo explained. "Just as we need to bring raw materials from the port to the inland factories that make new products, a rib forcefully transports gas to the central region where the gas is rapidly converted into new stars at a rate typically of 10 to 100." times faster than in the rest of the galaxy.
For many years, astronomers believed that our galaxy was home to stellar ribs, although their existence was only indirectly inferred.
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