The James Webb Space Telescope discovered a galaxy 13.5 billion years old
WASHINGTON: The higher the achievement of human technology, the more humans can contemplate the infinite wonders of the universe.
Just a week after the first series of images were revealed to astronomy lovers around the world, the James Webb Space Telescope revealed the discovery of a galaxy that existed since 13.5 billion years ago.
Known as GLASS-z13, the galaxy records its history 300 million years after the Big Bang event (the Big Bang theory that scientists believe was the starting point of the universe).
The latest discovery is estimated to be 100 million years earlier than anything known before, said Rohan Naidu, a scientist from the Harvard Center for Astrophysics.
“We are likely to see the most distant starlight that anyone has ever witnessed,” he said.
The farther an object is from us, the longer it takes for its light to reach us. So to observe a universe that is far away, means that we are ‘looking’ far into a very old page of history.
Although GLASS-z13 existed in the early universe, its exact age is still unknown as it may have formed at any time in the earliest 300 million years.
GLASS-z13 was detected through data obtained from the space’s leading infrared imager, NIRcam, but the discovery was not made public in the first series of images released by NASA earlier.
When translated from the infrared to the visible spectrum, the galaxy appears as a red blob with a white center.
Naidu and a team of 25 astronomers from around the world have submitted their findings to a scientific journal.
“Many astronomical records require support and proof. I am only satisfied when the results are confirmed by my teammates. However, this one is very promising,” said NASA’s Chief Scientist, Thomas Zurbuchen.
Naidu said, another team of astronomers led by Marco Castellano, who processed the same data, also reached the same conclusion.
“That gives us confidence (about the findings),” Naidu said.
One of the advantages of the Webb telescope is its ability to find the earliest galaxies that formed after the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago.
Because the galaxy is so far away from Earth, by the time its light reaches us, it is scattered widely due to the infinite nature of the universe. So, the light changes to an infrared form in the light spectrum. The Webb telescope, however, was able to identify the shape with a high degree of clarity.
Naidu and his team examined the infrared data from the distant universe, in order to look for special features or signatures of universes that are very far away.
“We examined all the early data for galaxies with this particular characteristic, and these are the two systems we identified as having the most spectacular signatures,” Naidu said.
One of them is the GLASS-z13, while the other is the not-so-obsolete GLASS-z11.
“There is strong evidence, but much more needs to be done,” he said.
source – Agency
