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View Larger / Features of the galaxies captured in JADES observations. (credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, M. Zamani)
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was specifically engineered to study some of the earliest celestial bodies in our universe’s history, and it has already achieved remarkable success by capturing images of galaxies from just 250 million years post-Big Bang. These early galaxies resembled today’s dwarf galaxies in size and structure, complicating the task of identifying their light sources—whether stemming from stars or an active supermassive black hole residing at their centers.
This week, the journal Nature reveals significant findings confirming the existence of additional galaxies that date back to approximately 300 million years after the Big Bang. Notably, one such galaxy is quite luminous and relatively sizable; this allows researchers to deduce that its brightness primarily emanates from a stellar halo surrounding its core rather than being generated at the site of a central black hole. This observation suggests that it underwent an extensive period of star formation initiating just 200 million years following the Big Bang.
Determining Cosmic Ages
The discussed galaxies were initially captured during the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES), which encompasses parts of what was previously imaged by Hubble’s Ultra Deep Field initiative. These ancient celestial entities were recognized using a strategic blend of filters deployed on one of Webb’s infrared imaging tools.
For further details and discussions on this groundbreaking research, please refer to additional content linked below.
