Cekricek.id – Through large data collected by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (Webb Telescope), a team of astronomy researchers from Rutgers University managed to reveal important clues about the conditions of the early universe.
A team led by Kristen McQuinn, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers, has successfully mapped the ages of stars in the Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte (WLM) galaxy. The result is the most detailed picture so far of a galaxy containing the oldest stars that formed 13 billion years ago.
“With in-depth observations thanks to James Webb, we were able to travel back in time. “It’s like conducting an archaeological dig to find low-mass stars early in natural history,” McQuinn said in the published study Astrophysical Journal.
He appreciated Rutgers’ Amarel high-performance computing cluster for enabling the team to carry out detailed calculations about the history of stellar evolution in the WLM. One of the keys is to perform large computations that are repeated up to 600 times.
‘Protector’ Galaxies of the Early Universe
The WLM itself was discovered by German astronomer Max Wolf in 1909, located on the outskirts of the Local Group which contains the Milky Way. This location protects WLM from impacts from collisions with other galaxies.
This condition makes the WLM star population pure, very useful for studying the process of star formation and the evolution of chemical elements in the early universe. Moreover, WLM is also actively forming new stars because it contains a lot of gas.
To map the history of WLM star birth, McQuinn and friends measured the color and brightness of hundreds of thousands of stars there. From there, the age of each star can be determined, and the birth rate of stars in various periods.
The results confirm previous findings using the Hubble Space Telescope, that the WLM star production rate fluctuates. On at first, then off, and on again.
McQuinn explained that the pause was likely due to the hot temperature of the universe at that time. The extreme conditions affected the gas in the WLM, temporarily shutting down star production for several billion years. After cooling, new star birth continues.
The Rutgers astronomer’s study is part of NASA’s Early Release Program with Webb. Scientists are competing fiercely to utilize observation time on the giant telescope which was launched in December 2021.
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They research various topics ranging from the conditions of the early universe, the history of the solar system, to the search for planets outside the solar system. There is still a lot of new knowledge that is expected to emerge from James Webb in the future.
Reference :
2024-03-02 03:35:54
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