Discoveries of Galaxies: From the Early Universe to the Milky Way

KOMPAS.com – A galaxy, simply put, is a vast collection of gas, dust and billions of stars and their solar systems, all held together by gravity.

The Earth that humans live on is part of the solar system, which is a small part of the Milky Way galaxy.

Apart from the Milky Way, there are many galaxies in the universe and it is not known exactly how many there are.

Quoted from the Britannica page, a galaxy is a system of stars and interstellar material that forms the universe.

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Galaxies consist of dust, gas, dark matter, and millions to trillions of stars held together by gravity.

Nearly all galaxies appear to have been born soon after the universe formed, and they were scattered across space.

Galaxies usually exist in groups, some of which are grouped into larger groups that are hundreds of millions of light years across.

The shapes of galaxies differ from one another, with variations resulting from the way the systems form and then evolve.

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Types of galaxies

Reporting from the National Geographic page, galaxies can be grouped into four main types, namely:

Galaxies can occur singly or in pairs, but are more often part of larger associations known as groups, clusters, and superclusters.

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Discovery of lost galaxies

A new study conducted by the James Webb Space Telescope division has finally discovered an early galaxy in the universe that is very far away, namely the galaxy AzTECC71.

Quoted from the Live Science page, the AzTECC71 galaxy was first seen as an incomprehensible blob of light by the James Clerk Maxwell telescope in Hawaii.

It was also detected by the ALMA radio telescope in Chile. But it later disappeared in images taken by the Hubble space telescope.

A galaxy from the early universe, AzTECC71, is so far from Earth that it escapes the observation of many telescopes.

Also read: How was the Earth Formed 4.5 Billion Years Ago?

However, NASA’s James Webb space telescope managed to highlight the galaxy AzTECC71. The galaxy looks like it did 900 million years after the Big Bang.

That’s when the universe produced its first stars, thousands of years before our solar system was born.

Although the AzTECC71 galaxy is only visible as a very distinct, hazy speck of light, it could potentially tell researchers that there is a large population of galaxies lurking.

Scientists estimate that the early universe was much dustier than previously thought.

This adds clues about how the universe has evolved since the Big Bang occurred about 13.8 billion years ago.

Also read: Getting to Know the Supernova Phenomenon and What Happens Afterwards

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2023-12-19 02:45:00
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