The James Webb Space Telescope has for the first time discovered and "weighed" a galaxy that arose 600 million years after the Big Bang and is similar in mass and development to our Milky Way if we could "turn back the clock." Now the age of the universe is about 13.8 billion years.
NASA writes about it.
The galaxy was nicknamed Firefly Sparkle, because it sparkles with star clusters — ten of them.
"I did not think that it would be possible to divide a galaxy that existed in the universe so long ago into so many different components, not to mention that its mass is similar to the mass of our galaxy when it was in the process of formation. There is so much going on in this tiny galaxy, including so many different phases of star formation," said study co-author Lamia Moula.
The telescope was able to get a sharp, detailed image of the galaxy thanks to two things: gravitational lensing and infrared light. The massive cluster of galaxies in the foreground significantly improved the view of the distant galaxy.
The James Webb data show that the Firefly Spark galaxy is small and belongs to the category of low-mass galaxies. It will take billions of years before a galaxy "ripens" to its full mass and acquires a distinct shape.
“Most of the other galaxies that Webb has shown us are not magnified or stretched, and we cannot see their ʼbuilding blocksʼ individually. In the case of Firefly Sparkle, weʼre watching the galaxy come together brick by brick,” Moula added.
The shape of the galaxy is like a bent arc. In it, the researchers noticed ten separate star clusters emitting the main part of the light. Each of them goes through a different phase of formation or evolution.
Scientists canʼt predict how the galaxy will form over billions of years, but there are two galaxies that the team confirmed are "hanging" in a tight perimeter around it and could be influencing how it accumulates mass.
This is an artist concept, a reconstruction of what the Firefly Sparkle galaxy looked like approximately 600 million years after the Big Bang.
Firefly Sparkle is only 6 500 light-years from its first companion galaxy, and 42 000 light-years from its second companion. For comparison: the fully formed Milky Way has a diameter of approximately 100 thousand light years. And all three will fit in it.
Every time one galaxy passes another, the gas condenses and cools, causing new stars to form clusters, adding mass to the galaxies.
"It has long been assumed that galaxies in the early universe formed through successive interactions and mergers with other smaller galaxies. We were able to witness this process in action," concluded study co-author Yoshihis Asad.
- The James Webb Space Telescope is the worldʼs main space science observatory. He unravels the mysteries of our solar system, looks into distant worlds around other stars, investigates the origin of the universe and our place in it.
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