New images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal galaxies with starbars for the first time.
The discovery of so-called barred galaxies, which occurred last summer (boreal), similar to our Milky Way, so early in the universe, will require astrophysicists to refine their theories of galaxy evolution.
Before the JWST, Hubble Space Telescope images had never detected bars at such young times.
“I took one look at this data and said, ‘Let’s drop everything else!’said Shardha Jogee, a professor of astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin. “The barely visible bars in the Hubble data simply appeared in the JWST image, showing the tremendous power of the JWST to see the underlying structure in galaxies.“, he claimed it’s a statement describing data from the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey (CEERS), led by UT Austin professor Steven Finkelstein.
The team identified another barred galaxy, EGS-24268, also from about 11 billion years ago, making two barred galaxies exist further back in time than any previously discovered.
The bars play an important role in the evolution of galaxies by funneling gas into the central regions, which drives star formation. The bars also help supermassive black holes grow at the centers of galaxies by funneling gas part of the way.
The discovery of bars during such early times shakes up galaxy evolution scenarios in several ways.
JWST can reveal structures in distant galaxies better than Hubble for two reasons: First, its larger mirror gives it greater light-gathering ability, allowing it to see farther and with higher resolution. Second, it can see through the dust better, since it observes at longer infrared wavelengths than Hubble.
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