The James Webb Space Telescope has captured an unprecedented object, a “missing link” in cosmic history.
According to a research team from the University of Oxford (UK) and the University of Chicago (USA), the object JADES-GS+53.12175-27.79763 recorded by the world’s most powerful space telescope is a galaxy, but it is unlike any galaxy previously known.
The strange object observed by James Webb is a galaxy entirely different from known galaxies – (Image: NASA/ESA/CSA).
Dr. Alex Cameron from the University of Oxford, a member of the research team, stated that his first thought upon examining the spectrum of this galaxy was “it’s truly bizarre.”
He noted that this ancient object represents entirely new phenomena in the early universe, which could help us understand how the universe began.
Since the light from this distant object has taken nearly 13 billion years to reach the Earth’s telescope, the image we see of it is essentially a snapshot from nearly 13 billion years ago.
According to Sci-News, in the early universe, it has been calculated that typical massive, hot stars had temperatures ranging from 40,000 to 50,000 degrees Celsius, making them nearly 10 times hotter than our Sun.
In the recently recorded ancient galaxy, stars even reach temperatures of up to 80,000 degrees Celsius.
Researchers suspect that this galaxy is undergoing a strong and brief star formation phase, within a dense cloud of gas that is continuously producing “monster” stars.
This gas cloud is being illuminated by numerous photons from the stars, causing it to shine brightly.
These stars do not belong to the Population III stars – which are the first-generation stars of the universe – as the nebulae they leave behind after their death have a rather complex chemical composition.
However, they are also not any known type of ancient star.
Thus, scientists believe that we are looking directly at “missing links,” a generation of stars that lies between the primordial stars and the second-generation stars that we had previously hypothesized.
This also helps us understand how galaxies transition from a collection of extreme and short-lived primordial stars to the types of galaxies we commonly see today.
In other words, the strange object recorded by James Webb represents a previously unknown evolutionary stage of the galaxy world.
The new research has just been published in the scientific journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
