Amazing stuff! Expect more great discoveries from the ames Webb Space Telescope!
"Key takeaways:
- UCLA astrophysicists are among the first scientists to use the James Webb Space Telescope to get a glimpse of the earliest galaxies in the universe.
- The studies reveal unprecedented detail about events that took place within the first billion years after the Big Bang.
- The UCLA projects were among a small number selected by NASA to test the capabilities of the Webb telescope.
The earliest galaxies were cosmic fireballs converting gas into stars at breathtaking speeds across their full extent ...
The research, based on data from the James Webb Space Telescope, is the first study of the shape and structure of those galaxies. It shows that they were nothing like present-day galaxies in which star formation is confined to small regions, such as the constellation of Orion in our own Milky Way galaxy. ...
found that galaxies that formed soon enough after the Big Bang — within less than a billion years — might have begun burning off leftover photon-absorbing hydrogen, bringing light to a dark universe. ...
The Epoch of Reionization is a period that remains poorly understood by scientists. Until now, researchers have not had the extremely sensitive infrared instruments needed to observe galaxies that existed then. Prior to cosmic reionization, the early universe remained devoid of light because ultraviolet photons from early stars were absorbed by the hydrogen atoms that saturated space. ..."
found that galaxies that formed soon enough after the Big Bang — within less than a billion years — might have begun burning off leftover photon-absorbing hydrogen, bringing light to a dark universe. ...
The Epoch of Reionization is a period that remains poorly understood by scientists. Until now, researchers have not had the extremely sensitive infrared instruments needed to observe galaxies that existed then. Prior to cosmic reionization, the early universe remained devoid of light because ultraviolet photons from early stars were absorbed by the hydrogen atoms that saturated space. ..."
From the abstract:
"Star-forming galaxies can exhibit strong morphological differences between the rest-frame far-UV and optical, reflecting inhomogeneities in star-formation and dust attenuation. ... We find no dramatic variations in morphology with wavelength -- of the kind that would have overturned anything we have learned from the Hubble Space Telescope. No significant trends between morphology and wavelengths are detected using standard quantitative morphology statistics. We detect signatures of mergers/interactions in 4/19 galaxies. Our results are consistent with a scenario in which Lyman Break galaxies -- observed when the universe is only 400-800 Myrs old - are growing via a combination of rapid galaxy-scale star formation supplemented by accretion of star forming clumps and interactions."
JWST spots some of the most distant galaxies ever seen Premier observatory offers a glimpse of the early Universe.
Early Results From GLASS-JWST. XII: The Morphology of Galaxies at the Epoch of Reionization (open access)
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