A new surprise from "James Webb" .. a galaxy that is 800 million years old
Astronomers at the University of Edinburgh have discovered a huge galaxy about 25 million light-years away from Earth.
The researchers said in media statements that the galaxy known as GS-9209, which was found by the James Webb telescope, was formed about 600 to 800 million years after the Big Bang, and it is the oldest of its kind that has been discovered so far.
According to lead researcher Dr. Adam Carnal, from the University of Edinburgh's School of Physics and Astronomy, the James Webb Space Telescope has already shown that galaxies were forming 'more and earlier than we expected during the first billion years of cosmic history.'
He continued: "This discovery gives us for the first time a detailed look at the properties of these galaxies, as well as the history of their formation, and also indicates the fact that we also see a very huge black hole in this galaxy, which is called the Quiet Galaxy."
The researchers confirm that although the detected galaxy is about 10 times smaller than the Milky Way, GS-9209 has a similar number of stars to our galaxy.
And about two months ago from now, the James Webb Space Telescope monitored the most distant galaxy ever discovered, formed in the early ages of the universe, only 320 million years after the Big Bang.
It is well known that the more distant galaxies are, i.e. young ones in turn, the more difficult it is to detect them due to the weak optical signal emanating from them.
The first data recorded by the James Webb telescope, which has been in service since July 2022, has identified many galaxies whose light signals may be within the infrared range, which are wavelengths invisible to the human eye and whose observation allows diving into the depths of the distant past.
The NIRCam camera integrated with the telescope, thanks to its powerful ability to probe infrared radiation, as well as spectral analysis that analyzes the light emanating from an object to determine its chemical elements, "unequivocally" confirmed the presence of four galaxies, all of which are located on the red side in The ends of the spectrum, that is, they are very far away.
Source: websites