The James Webb Space Telescope May Have Discovered a Cosmic Treasure – the Most Distant and Ancient Galaxy Ever Known.
According to Sci-News, new images from the James Webb Space Telescope, captured by its Near Infrared Camera and Mid-Infrared Instrument as part of the CEERS survey aimed at the “cosmic dawn” – reveal what could be a galaxy formed just 290 million years after the Big Bang.
A new frame from James Webb, where the most ancient galaxy Massie is the red dot enlarged in the square frame beside – (Image: NASA / STScI / CEERS / TACC)
The Big Bang that birthed the universe is estimated to have occurred about 13.8 billion years ago, thus the mysterious galaxy, named Massie, is over 13.5 billion years old.
The research team, led by Dr. Steven Finkelstein from the Department of Astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin – the principal investigator of the CEERS survey, notes that studying the oldest galaxies will help us understand the early building blocks of the galaxy containing Earth, the Milky Way.
Searches in the redshift range z=6-10 (based on a physical phenomenon where light emitted from objects moving away from the observer appears redder) have revealed a dense forest of ancient galaxies.
An image from James Webb showing an ancient sky with various types of galaxies – (Image: NASA / STScI / CEERS / TACC)
However, galaxies with z>=10 are still very rare in older datasets, due to the limitations of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
The new warrior from NASA/ESA/CSA (Canadian Space Agency) – James Webb – is much more powerful than Hubble and has been able to search farther into the universe. Massie has been identified with a massive redshift of z=14.3.
The image we see from Massie is a “time capsule” as the light from it has taken over 13.5 billion years to reach Earth, meaning what we see is a view of the universe from over 13.5 billion years ago.
Other images from the recently released treasure trove of James Webb also provide insights into a range of complex galaxies, from beautifully mature ones to “infant” galaxies. The collection of images belongs to a wide area in the Ursa Major constellation.
