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Webb Shows Many Early Galaxies Looked Like Pool Noodles, Surfboards

By NASA
January 17, 2024 in NASA

https://www.aliensandspace.com/topic/11483-webb-shows-many-early-galaxies-looked-like-pool-noodles-surfboards/

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Webb Shows Many Early Galaxies Looked Like Pool Noodles, Surfboards

In the far-left column are two galaxies that have been magnified. The top left galaxy appears circular and light pink with a slightly whiter central region, taking up less than one-sixth of the box. The bottom galaxy is elongated, stretching almost from top left to bottom right. It has a white line at the center that has a pink outline that transitions into and bluish edges at far left and right. Thin lines from each magnified galaxy point their appearances in the broader field. The top galaxy appears as a tiny dot at the upper center, and the bottom galaxy toward the left. Thousands of galaxies appear across most of this view, which is set against the black background of space. There are many overlapping objects at various distances. They include large, blue foreground stars, with Webb’s signature eight-pointed diffraction spikes, and white and pink spiral and elliptical galaxies. Numerous tiny red dots appear throughout the scene. This is a portion of a vast survey known in shorthand as CEERS.

Researchers are analyzing distant galaxies when the universe was only 600 million to 6 billion years old.

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, Steve Finkelstein (UT Austin), Micaela Bagley (UT Austin), Rebecca Larson (UT Austin)

Researchers analyzing images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found that galaxies in the early universe are often flat and elongated, like surfboards and pool noodles – and are rarely round, like volleyballs or frisbees. “Roughly 50 to 80% of the galaxies we studied appear to be flattened in two dimensions,” explained lead author Viraj Pandya, a NASA Hubble Fellow at Columbia University in New York. “Galaxies that look like pool noodles or surfboards seem to be very common in the early universe, which is surprising, since they are uncommon nearby.”

The team focused on a vast field of near-infrared images delivered by Webb, known as the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey, plucking out galaxies that are estimated to exist when the universe was 600 million to 6 billion years old.

Image: Sample Shapes of Distant Galaxies

Researchers analyzing distant galaxies that show up in the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope found an array of odd shapes when the universe was only 600 million to 6 billion years old. The inset at the top left shows a galaxy that looks more like a sphere, and is the least common in Webb’s results, along with an example of a galaxy that appears as an edge-on disk but may be better classified as elongated. Elongated shapes are one of the most common identified so far in Webb’s survey.

NASA, ESA, CSA, Steve Finkelstein (UT Austin), Micaela Bagley (UT Austin), Rebecca Larson (UT Austin)

While most distant galaxies look like surfboards and pool noodles, others are shaped like frisbees and volleyballs. The “volleyballs,” or sphere-shaped galaxies, appear the most compact type on the cosmic “ocean” and were also the least frequently identified. The frisbees were found to be as large as the surfboard- and pool noodle-shaped galaxies along the “horizon,” but become more common closer to “shore” in the nearby universe. (Compare them in this illustration.)

Which category would our Milky Way galaxy fall into if we were able to wind the clock back by billions of years? “Our best guess is that it might have appeared more like a surfboard,” said co-author Haowen Zhang, a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona in Tucson. This hypothesis is based partly on new evidence from Webb – theorists have “wound back the clock” to estimate the Milky Way’s mass billions of years ago, which correlates with shape at that time.

Image: 3D Classifications for Distant Galaxies

Six galaxies appear in boxes, three by two. From top left to bottom right: The three galaxies in the top row are labeled, elongated appearance. All three galaxies appear to form thin lines that take up less than a quarter of the frame. The galaxy at top left has a horizontal thin line with two dots beneath it; the center galaxy is a short line from top left to bottom right made up of individual dots, with a haze toward the center-left; the right galaxy is the longest line angles from top left to bottom right, and several dim dots above it. Along the lower row, the galaxies at left and center, labeled disk-like appearances, have hazy spiral shapes, and each take up about half of the frame. The galaxy at lower right, labeled spherical appearance, looks like a bright dot centered in the frame and is far smaller.

These are examples of distant galaxies captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in its CEERS Survey. Galaxies frequently appear flat and elongated, like pool noodles or surfboards (along the top row). Thin, circular disk-like galaxies, which resemble frisbees, are the next major grouping (shown at lower left and center). Galaxies that are shaped like spheres, or volleyballs, made up the smallest fraction of their detections (shown at lower right). All of these galaxies are estimated to have existed when the universe was only 600 million to 6 billion years old.

NASA, ESA, CSA, Steve Finkelstein (UT Austin), Micaela Bagley (UT Austin), Rebecca Larson (UT Austin)

These distant galaxies are also far less massive than nearby spirals and ellipticals – they are precursors to more massive galaxies like our own. “In the early universe, galaxies had had far less time to grow,” said Kartheik Iyer, a co-author and NASA Hubble Fellow also at Columbia University. “Identifying additional categories for early galaxies is exciting – there’s a lot more to analyze now. We can now study how galaxies’ shapes relate to how they look and better project how they formed in much more detail.”

Webb’s sensitivity, high-resolution images, and specialization in infrared light allowed the team to make quick work of characterizing many CEERS galaxies, and model their 3D geometries. Pandya also says their work wouldn’t be possible without the extensive research astronomers have done using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

For decades, Hubble has wowed us with images of some of the earliest galaxies, beginning with its first “deep field” in 1995 and continuing with a seminal survey known as Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey. Deep sky surveys like these led to far greater statistics, leading astronomers to create robust 3D models of distant galaxies over all of cosmic time. Today, Webb is helping to enhance these efforts, adding a bounty of distant galaxies beyond Hubble’s reach and revealing the early universe in far greater detail than previously possible.

Webb’s images of the early universe have acted like an ocean swell – delivering new waves of evidence. “Hubble has long showed an excess of elongated galaxies,” explained co-author Marc Huertas-Company, a faculty research scientist at the Institute of Astrophysics on the Canary Islands. But researchers still wondered: Would additional detail show up better with sensitivity to infrared light? “Webb confirmed that Hubble didn’t miss any additional features in the galaxies they both observed. Plus, Webb showed us many more distant galaxies with similar shapes, all in great detail.”

There are still gaps in our knowledge – researchers not only need an even larger sample size from Webb to further refine the properties and precise locations of distant galaxies, they will also need to spend ample time tweaking and updating their models to better reflect the precise geometries of distant galaxies. “These are early results,” said co-author Elizabeth McGrath, an associate professor at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. “We need to delve more deeply into the data to figure out what’s going on, but we’re very excited about these early trends.”

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

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Media Contacts

Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov, Rob Gutro– rob.gutro@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, , Greenbelt, Md.

Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.

Related Information

Galaxy Types

Galaxy Evolution

How Can Webb Study the Early Universe?

Infrared Astronomy

More Webb News – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/latestnews/

More Webb Images – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/multimedia/images/

Webb Mission Page – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/

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Jan 17, 2024

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  The incredibly distant galaxy JADES-GS-z13-1, observed just 330 million years after the big bang, was initially discovered with deep imaging from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). Now, an international team of astronomers definitively has identified powerful hydrogen emission from this galaxy at an unexpectedly early period in the universe’s history. JADES-GS-z-13 has a redshift (z) of 13, which is an indication of its age and distance. NASA, ESA, CSA, JADES Collaboration, J. Witstok (University of Cambridge/University of Copenhagen), P. Jakobsen (University of Copenhagen), A. Pagan (STScI), M. Zamani (ESA/Webb) Image B: JADES-GS-z13-1 (NIRCam Close-Up)
  This image shows the galaxy JADES GS-z13-1 (the red dot at center), imaged with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) program. These data from NIRCam allowed researchers to identify GS-z13-1 as an incredibly distant galaxy, and to put an estimate on its redshift value. Webb’s unique infrared sensitivity is necessary to observe galaxies at this extreme distance, whose light has been shifted into infrared wavelengths during its long journey across the cosmos. NASA, ESA, CSA, JADES Collaboration, J. Witstok (University of Cambridge/University of Copenhagen), P. Jakobsen (University of Copenhagen), M. Zamani (ESA/Webb) The NIRCam imaging yielded an initial redshift estimate of 12.9. Seeking to confirm its extreme redshift, an international team lead by Joris Witstok of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, as well as the Cosmic Dawn Center and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, then observed the galaxy using Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph instrument.
  In the resulting spectrum, the redshift was confirmed to be 13.0. This equates to a galaxy seen just 330 million years after the big bang, a small fraction of the universe’s present age of 13.8 billion years old. But an unexpected feature stood out as well: one specific, distinctly bright wavelength of light, known as Lyman-alpha emission, radiated by hydrogen atoms. This emission was far stronger than astronomers thought possible at this early stage in the universe’s development.
  “The early universe was bathed in a thick fog of neutral hydrogen,” explained Roberto Maiolino, a team member from the University of Cambridge and University College London. “Most of this haze was lifted in a process called reionization, which was completed about one billion years after the big bang. GS-z13-1 is seen when the universe was only 330 million years old, yet it shows a surprisingly clear, telltale signature of Lyman-alpha emission that can only be seen once the surrounding fog has fully lifted. This result was totally unexpected by theories of early galaxy formation and has caught astronomers by surprise.”
  Image C: JADES-GS-z13-1 Spectrum Graphic
  NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has detected unexpected light from a distant galaxy. The galaxy JADES-GS-z13-1, observed just 330 million years after the big bang (corresponding to a redshift of z=13.05), shows bright emission from hydrogen known as Lyman-alpha emission. This is surprising because that emission should have been absorbed by a dense fog of neutral hydrogen that suffused the early universe. NASA, ESA, CSA, J. Witstok (University of Cambridge, University of Copenhagen), J. Olmsted (STScI) Before and during the era of reionization, the immense amounts of neutral hydrogen fog surrounding galaxies blocked any energetic ultraviolet light they emitted, much like the filtering effect of colored glass. Until enough stars had formed and were able to ionize the hydrogen gas, no such light — including Lyman-alpha emission — could escape from these fledgling galaxies to reach Earth. The confirmation of Lyman-alpha radiation from this galaxy, therefore, has great implications for our understanding of the early universe.
  “We really shouldn’t have found a galaxy like this, given our understanding of the way the universe has evolved,” said Kevin Hainline, a team member from the University of Arizona. “We could think of the early universe as shrouded with a thick fog that would make it exceedingly difficult to find even powerful lighthouses peeking through, yet here we see the beam of light from this galaxy piercing the veil. This fascinating emission line has huge ramifications for how and when the universe reionized.”
  The source of the Lyman-alpha radiation from this galaxy is not yet known, but it may include the first light from the earliest generation of stars to form in the universe.
  “The large bubble of ionized hydrogen surrounding this galaxy might have been created by a peculiar population of stars — much more massive, hotter, and more luminous than stars formed at later epochs, and possibly representative of the first generation of stars,” said Witstok. A powerful active galactic nucleus, driven by one of the first supermassive black holes, is another possibility identified by the team.
  This research was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
  The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
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  Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
  NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
  Bethany Downer – Bethany.Downer@esawebb.org
  ESA/Webb, Baltimore, Md.
  Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
  Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
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