2023-09-27 06:00:03
A recent study challenges decades of knowledge about galaxy formation. The prevailing narrative about the rarity of Milky Way-like galaxies in the ancient Universe turns out to be incorrect. Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), researchers have discovered that these galaxies are surprisingly common and even existed 10 billion years ago. .
Example of spiral galaxies. Picture THAT
International researchers, including members from the University of Manchester and the University of Victoria in Canada, made the discovery. They used JWST to observe that galaxies resembling the Milky Way are common across the Universe. what exists and the laws that govern it.) These galaxies, called “disc” because of their similar shape to a pancake, revolve around their center and often contain spiral arms.
Until now, it was commonly accepted that these galaxies were too fragile to exist in the young Universe, a period during which galaxy mergers were frequent. The research team, led by Leonardo Ferreira of the University of Victoria, and including Christopher Conselice, professor of extragalactic astronomy (The extragalactic astronomy is a branch of astronomy that studies celestial objects…) at the University of Manchester, reveals that these disk galaxies are actually ten times more common than previously thought.
Previous observations made with the Hubble Space Telescope had led to the belief that these disk galaxies were almost non-existent until the The Universe is approximately 6 billion years old. The new data from JWST show that these galaxies were present almost from the origins of the Universe.
Comparison between the HST and JWST telescopes showing 13 galaxies. Faint features in CANDELS images are generally very clear in JWST images.
Credit: The Astrophysical Journal (2023). DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/acec76
The superiority of the JWST compared to the Hubble Space Telescope now makes it possible to observe the true structure of these galaxies. The discovery means scientists need to rethink our understanding of how early galaxies formed and how they evolved over the past 10 billion years.
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