▶ Web telescope deep field analysis
▶ Possibility of very early globular clusters
A globular cluster of distant galaxies, including the oldest known very early stars, was captured by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), researchers at the University of Toronto in Canada announced on the 29th of last month.
As a result of capturing and analyzing signals from the globular cluster with JWST, the researchers explain that it may contain early stars that were shining about 500 million years after the birth of the universe, that is, 13 billion years ago or earlier. This is much older than our sun formed about 4.6 billion years ago.
This is the result of an initial analysis of the ‘Webb’s First Deep Field’ image released to the public by NASA on July 11 this year. The researchers explain that it may be information about some of the earliest galaxies that appeared in the universe.
The researchers focused on a galaxy about 9 billion light-years away, which they decided to call “Sparkler.”
Researchers believe that these sparkles may be in the form of young star clusters that are actively forming stars 3 billion years after the Big Bang, the beginning of the universe, or globular clusters of very old stars.
A globular cluster is a dense cluster of tens to tens of millions of stars formed from the early days of the galaxy, and contains information that can be a clue to the early formation and growth of the galaxy. There are about 150 globular clusters in our galaxy, but it is unknown exactly when they formed.
Analyzing 12 of the points around the ‘Sparkler Galaxy’, the researchers explain that five of them appear to belong to the oldest known globular clusters.
This is the first time that very distant globular clusters have been used to estimate the ages of the earliest stars in distant galaxies.