James Webb Space Telescope looking at galaxies. These image elements provided by NASA… [+] https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2017/hubble-catches-starbursts-in-a-barred-spiral-galaxy
getty
Astronomers have used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to find three of the oldest galaxies ever found.
They exist less than 400 million years after the Big Bang, 13.4 billion years ago, when the universe was only 2% of its current age.
The galaxies were found in the same path in the night sky, near the Big Dipper, where Hubble’s iconic ultra-deep field image was taken.
When JWST began operations last summer, several extreme candidates for the “farthest galaxy ever found” emerged almost immediately. Now, JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) Initial scientists have taken long observations to confirm four of them by measuring their distances and physical properties.
“We’ve discovered galaxies at fantastic times in the distant universe,” said UC Santa Cruz astronomy and astrophysics professor Brant Robertson. “With JWST, for the first time we can find galaxies this far away and then confirm spectroscopically that they really are that far away.”
“We’re seeing evidence of star formation as early as we might expect based on our galaxy formation models,” he said.
JWST’s Advanced Extragalactic Deep Survey (JADES) focused on the area in and around the Hubble… [+] Space Telescope Ultra Deep Field.
MAGE: NASA, ESA, CSA, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb), Leah Hustak (STScI) SCIENCE: Brant Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), S. Tacchella (Cambridge), E. Curtis-Lake (UOH), S. Carniani (Scuola Normale Superiore), JADES Collaboration
Spectroscopy is when astronomers split the light they collect into different wavelengths, creating a rainbow-like spectrum. JWST is equipped with a near-infrared camera (NIRCam), which was used to collect the ancient red light from these prototype galaxies in nine different infrared wavelength ranges.
The early light of the universe is red because the universe is expanding. Red light has the longest wavelength. The so-called “redshift” measured by JWST’s NIRCam for four galaxies was 10.38, 11.58, 13.20, and 12.63, making three of them the most distant galaxies confirmed by spectroscopy so far.
“These are far beyond what we could have imagined finding before JWST,” Robertson said. “At redshift 13, the universe is only about 325 million years old.”
The new findings, now published online, will be presented Monday, Dec. 12, 2022, at JWST’s First Science Results conference at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) conference in Baltimore.
I wish you clear skies and wide eyes.