NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has detected galaxies similar to our Milky Way, which formed when the universe was only 25% of its current age.
Russia Today said the galaxies appear to be strikingly similar to our own galaxy, and these huge clumps of gas, dust and stars are characterized by “stellar ribs” (starbars), which are elongated features of stars that extend from the galaxies’ centers to their external drives. It was found shortly after the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago.
Starbursts exist in our galaxy, but this is the first time scientists have seen them in the early universe — a discovery that “will prompt astrophysicists to improve their theories of galaxy evolution.”
“This early detection of the ribs means that models of galaxy evolution now have a new path through the ribs to accelerate the production of new stars in the early ages,” said Sharda Jogi, an astronomy professor at the University of Texas at Austin. in a statement.
The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered ribs before, but never before in such an early era of the universe.
And the extra detail from the James Webb Telescope appears to have been the breakthrough needed to see the first galaxies in enough detail to detect those ribbons. Previous observations by the Hubble Space Telescope had shown EGS-23205 to be an interesting disk-shaped point, but new images by James Webb, taken last summer, show it to be a beautiful spiral galaxy with distinct stellar edges.
“The ribs, barely visible in the Hubble data, have just appeared in the James Webb Space Telescope image, showing James Webb’s tremendous power to see the underlying structure in galaxies,” said Sharda Joji.
The team identified six major galaxies between eight billion and 11 billion years old.
“For this study, we are looking at a new system where nobody has used this kind of data or done this kind of quantitative analysis before, so everything is new,” said Yuchan Kaiguo, the graduate student who led the data analysis. . It’s like entering a forest that no one has ever been in before.”
Ribs are found in up to 65% of spiral galaxies and influence the motion of stars, dust and gas.
Scientists believe the ribs act as a funnel, drawing material into the bulge from the disk and promoting star formation.
The rods also help form supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies by directing gas in part.
Kai Guo explained, “Ribs solve the galactic supply chain problem. Just as we need to get raw materials from a port to inland factories that make new products, a rib carries gas to the core region where the gas is rapidly converted into new stars, typically 10 to 100 times faster than elsewhere. of the galaxy world.”
For many years, astronomers believed that our galaxy was home to stellar ribs, although their existence was only indirectly inferred.
