NASA’s James Webb Space TelescopeJWST) has reached another milestone, as it has discovered the oldest confirmed galaxies to date. The detected galaxies date from less than 400 million years following the Big Bang.
Since its launch earlier this year, the Webb telescope has been busy revealing pillars of creation Under a new light to reveal unprecedented details of the early universe. The High Power Telescope has reached further than ever in the past, detecting galaxies dating back to a time when the universe was only 2% of its current age. Now, the oldest galaxies ever discovered have been confirmed by obtaining spectroscopic observations, which reveal “distinctive features and patterns in the fingerprints of light coming from these incredibly faint galaxies.”
This Webb image highlights the study area of the Webb Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES).
“It was necessary to prove that these galaxies did in fact inhabit the early universe. It is quite possible that the nearest galaxies were masquerading as very distant galaxies,” explained the co-author of a new paper describing the findings from Emma Curtis Lake of the University. Hertfordshire in the UK. “Seeing the spectrum unfold as we expected, confirming that these galaxies are at the edge of our sight, and some are further than Hubble can see! It’s a very exciting feat of the mission.”
The Advanced Webb Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) has focused on an area in and around the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Using Webb’s NIRCam instrument, the scientists were able to observe the field in nine different infrared wavelength ranges. The team then searched for faint galaxies that can be seen in the infrared but whose spectra break abruptly at a critical wavelength known as the Lyman fracture. The scientists were then able to use NIRCam to obtain an accurate measure of each galaxy’s redshift.
Four of the galaxies studied are particularly special, as they were revealed to be in an unprecedentedly early age.
“For the first time, we detected galaxies just 350 million years following the Big Bang, and we can be pretty sure of their fantastic distances,” said co-author Brant Robertson of the University of California Santa Cruz. “Finding these first galaxies in such stunningly beautiful images is a special experience.”
co-author A recent study Sandro Taquila, from the University of Cambridge in the UK, added that it is difficult to understand galaxies without understanding the “initial periods of their evolution”. Tequila continued: “As with humans, much of what happens next depends on the influence of these first generations of stars. Many questions regarding the galaxies await Webb’s transformative opportunity, and we are delighted to be able to participate in revealing this story.”