This simulation shows how star rods form (left) and rod-driven gas flows (right). Starbars play an important role in galactic evolution by funneling gas into the central regions of the galaxy, where it is rapidly converted into new stars, 10 to 100 times faster than the rate in the rest of the galaxy. The bars also indirectly help the formation of supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies by directing the gaseous part of the way. Credit: Françoise Combes, Paris Observatory
New photos from[{”attribute=””>NASA[{”attribute=””>NASA’s[{”attribute=””>NASA[{”attribute=””>NASA’s
” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute=””>TelescopiospazialeJamesWebb[{“attribute=””>JamesWebbSpaceTelescope[{“attribute=””>TelescopiospazialeJamesWebb[{“attribute=””>JamesWebbSpaceTelescope (JWST) reveal galaxies with starbars — elongated features of stars that extend from the centers of galaxies into their outer disks — for the first time at a time when the universe was only 25% of its current age. The discovery of the so-called barred galaxies, similar to ours
” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute=””>MilkyWay[{“attribute=””>MilkyWay[{“attribute=””>ViaLattea[{“attribute=””>MilkyWayso early in the universe will require astrophysicists to refine their theories of the evolution of galaxies.
Before JWST, images from
” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute=””>HubbleSpaceTelescope[{“attribute=””>HubbleSpaceTelescope[{“attribute=””>TelescopiospazialeHubble[{“attribute=””>HubbleSpaceTelescope he had never detected bars in such a young era. In a Hubble image, one galaxy, EGS-23205, is little more than a disc-shaped blob, but in the corresponding JWST image taken last summer, it’s a beautiful spiral galaxy with a clear starbar.
“I looked at this data and said, ‘We’re dropping everything else!'” said Shardha Jogee, an astronomy professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “The barely visible bars in the Hubble data just popped out in the JWST image, showing the tremendous power of JWST to see the underlying structure in galaxies,” she said, describing the data from the Early Release Cosmic Evolution Science Survey (CEERS), led by UT Austin professor Steven Finkelstein.
JWST’s power to map galaxies at higher resolution and at longer infrared wavelengths than Hubble allows it to look through the dust and reveal the underlying structure and mass of distant galaxies. You can see it in these two images of the galaxy EGS23205, as it was about 11 billion years ago. In the HST image (left, taken in the near-infrared filter), the galaxy is little more than a disk-shaped patch obscured by dust and affected by the glow of young stars, but in the corresponding mid-infrared JWST image (taken in the last summer), is a beautiful spiral galaxy with a clear star bar. Credit: NASA/CEERS/University of Texas at Austin
The team identified another barred galaxy, EGS-24268, also from about 11 billion years ago, making two barred galaxies exist further back in time than any previously discovered.
In an article accepted for publication in The letters from the astrophysicist diaryhighlight these two galaxies and show examples of four other barred galaxies more than 8 billion years old.
“For this study, we’re looking at a new regimen where nobody had used this kind of data or done this kind of quantitative analysis before,” said Yuchen “Kay” Guo, a graduate student who conducted the analysis, “so all it’s new. It’s like entering a forest that no one has ever entered.”
The bars play an important role in the evolution of galaxies by channeling gas into the central regions, promoting star formation.
“Bars solve the supply chain problem in galaxies,” Jogee said. “Just as we need to get raw material from the port to inland factories making new products, a rod powerfully carries the gas to the core region where the gas is rapidly converted into new stars at a rate typically 10 to 100 times faster faster than in the rest of the galaxy.
The bars also help grow supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies by funneling gas along the way.
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This simulation shows how star rods form (left) and rod-driven gas flows (right). Starbars play an important role in galactic evolution by funneling gas into the central regions of the galaxy, where it is rapidly converted into new stars, 10 to 100 times faster than the rate in the rest of the galaxy. The bars also indirectly help the formation of supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies by directing the gaseous part of the way. Credit: Françoise Combes, Paris Observatory
The discovery of the bars during these early eras has upset the evolutionary scenarios of galaxies in several ways.
“This early detection of rod cells means that models of galaxy evolution now have a new path through rod cells to accelerate the production of new stars in the early epochs,” said Jogee.
And the existence of these first bars challenges theoretical models because they have to correct galactic physics to predict the correct abundance of bars. The team will be testing different models in their upcoming papers.
A montage of JWST images shows six examples of barred galaxies, two of which represent the highest recovery times quantified and characterized to date. The labels in the upper left of each issue show each galaxy’s retrograde time, ranging from 8.4 to 11 billion years ago (Gyr), when the universe was only 40% to 20% of its current age. Credit: NASA/CEERS/University of Texas at Austin
JWST can detect structures in distant galaxies better than Hubble for two reasons: First, its larger mirror gives it greater light-gathering ability, allowing it to see farther and in higher resolution. Second, it can see better through the dust because it observes at longer infrared wavelengths than the Hubble Space Telescope.
College students Eden Wise and Zilei Chen played a large part in the research by visually reviewing hundreds of galaxies, looking for those that appeared to have bars, which helped narrow the list down to a few dozen so other researchers could analyze it with more calculations. intensive. . Approaching.
Reference: “First Look at z > 1 Bars in Near Infrared Rest of Frame with JWST Early CEERS Imagery” by Yuchen Guo, Sharda Joji, Stephen L Finkelstein, Zili Chen, Aiden Weiss, Michaela P Bagley, Guillermo Barrow, Stegen & Witts, Dale D. Kosevski, Jehan S. Kartaltepe, Elizabeth J. McGrath, Henry C. Ferguson, Bahram Mobacher, Mauro Giavalescu, Ray A. Lucas, George A. Zavala, Jennifer M. Lutz, Norman A. Grojean, Mark Huertas-Company , Jesus Vega-Ferrero, Nimish P. Hathi, Pablo Arrabal Haro, Mark Dickinson, Anton M. Koekemoer, Casey Papovich, Nor Pirzkal, LY Aaron Yung, Bren E. Backhaus, Eric F. Bell, Antonello Calabrò, Nikko G. Cleary , Rosemary T. Cogan, MC Cooper, Luca Constantin, Darren Croton, Kelsey Davis, Alexandre de la Vega, Avishai Dekel, Maximilian Franco, Jonathan P. Gardner, Ben W. Holwerda, Taylor A. Hutchison, Viraj Pandya, Pablo G. Perez-Gonzalez, Swara Ravindranath, Caitlin Rose, Jonathan R. Trump, Weichen Wang agreed, Letters from the astrophysicist diary.
arXiv: 2210.08658
Other co-authors from the University of Austin are Stephen Finkelstein, Michaela Bagley and Maximilian Franco. Dozens of co-authors from other institutions come from the US, UK, Japan, Spain, France, Italy, Australia and Israel.
Funding for this research was provided in part by the Roland K. Blumberg Endowment in Astronomy, the Heising-Simons Foundation and NASA. This work drew on resources at the Texas Center for Advanced Computing, including the Frontera, the most powerful supercomputer at an American university.
