where does this “impossible structure” come from?

2024-03-17 05:00:12

It was just an intriguing and unusual bright spot in the Hubble Space Telescope’s field of view, but this simple observation set the stage for a major discovery for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

The complex shape of Gz9p3 indicates that it resulted from the merger between several galaxies. L’imagery (Imaging consists primarily of the making and trading of physical images that…) direct by JWST reveals that Gz9p3 has a double nucleus, a sign of a fusion still in progress.
Credit: NASA/Boyett et al

James Webb, Hubble’s successor, revealed the existence of Gz9p3, one of the oldest galaxies ever identified, visible as it was only 510 million years after the Big Bang (The Big Bang is the dense and hot era that the universe experienced…). At that time, theUniverse (The Universe is the totality of everything that exists and the laws that govern it.) was still in its prime, far from its current 13.8 billion years.

What strikes the researchers is that Gz9p3, despite the presumed immaturity of the Universe at this period, seems to contain several billion stars and displays a mass much greater than that anticipated for a galaxy (Galaxies is a quarterly French magazine devoted to science fiction. With…) of this era. Its mass is approximately ten times that of other galaxies observed by the JWST at comparable times in the history of the Universe.

The mystery deepens with the structure of Gz9p3 itself, which offers clues to its formation. Using direct imaging from JWST, scientists discovered that Gz9p3 has a complex shape with two dense cores, suggesting that it is the result of a merger between two primitive galaxies. This merger could even still be in progress.

The study of the stellar population of Gz9p3 reveals an abundance of ancient stars, having survived supernova explosions which enriched the early Universe in heavy metals such as silicon (Silicon is a chemical element of the crystallogen family, with the symbol Si…)the carbone (Carbon is a chemical element of the crystallogens family, with the symbol C,…) and the fer (Iron is a chemical element, with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is the…). This process played a key role in building subsequent generations of stars.

The ability of galaxies to rapidly accumulate mass and form stars in the early Universe questions our current understanding. The case of Gz9p3 demonstrates that galaxies could become “chemically mature” much more quickly than previously thought, raising new questions about how quickly the Universe was structured after the Big Bang.

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