Al Ain News
An international team of astrophysicists has discovered a galaxy 33 billion light-years away from Earth and is the second farthest galaxy from our planet in the history of space observations.
The team of scientists discovered the galaxy using the James Webb Space Telescope, and published its study in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
According to the “TASS” website, two amazing galaxies were discovered at the same time, and it turned out that one of them was the second farthest galaxy from Earth, and the other was not only far away, but it was also the fourth largest galaxy in the history of space meteorology, and it was discovered in the Pandora constellation (Abell 2744). .
It turns out that both galaxies, as the study’s authors note, are incredibly distant from us, located about 33 billion light-years away.
The researchers also say that these celestial bodies are optically different from other known distant galaxies, and the latter are usually visible in images taken by telescopes as red dots, and the newly discovered galaxies resemble peanuts and balls of fluff.
“We know very little about the early universe, so the only way to learn about that period of time and test our theories about the formation and growth of early galaxies is to study very distant galaxies,” says the study’s first author, Bingyi Wang, from the University of Pennsylvania.
He continued: “Before we conducted our analysis, we knew that only three galaxies were located at this very far distance, and the study of new galaxies and their properties indicates the diversity of such celestial bodies in the early universe.”
According to the scientist, the light emanating from the newly discovered galaxies travels for a very long time before reaching Earth, and therefore it practically opens a cosmic window to the past for researchers.
According to estimates by the authors of the scientific research, the light discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope was emitted from both galaxies when the universe was only about 330 million years old.
“The light emanating from these galaxies is ancient, about three times older than Earth,” explained study co-author Joel Licha. “It is like a beacon, its light penetrating a very thin layer of hydrogen gas that then filled the early universe. It is through light that we can begin to understand physics.” “The aliens who ruled the galaxies at the dawn of the universe.”
It is noteworthy that the two newly discovered galaxies turned out to be much larger than the three distant galaxies known to science so far. The size of one of them is at least six times larger, although its diameter is estimated at only about 2,000 light-years.
For comparison, the diameter of the Milky Way Galaxy is about 100,000 light-years. According to Wang, the early universe was very compact, but it continues to expand. So it is not surprising that early galaxies were smaller than the galaxies that surround us now.
