named Glass-Z13, the galaxy appears to us as it was only about 300 million years after the Big Bang, according to an astrophysicist.
Le Monde with AFP
A week after the revelation of the first images of the James-Webb space telescope, the most powerful ever designed, it could already have found the most distant galaxy ever observed, which existed 13.5 billion of years.
named Glass-Z13, it appears to us as it was only about 300 million years after the Big Bang, or 100 million years less than the previous record observed, said Rohan Naidu, from the center of ‘Harvard Smithson Astrophysics.
He is the main author of a study analyzing data from the first observations of James-Webb, currently underway. These data is put online for all astronomers on the planet.
Paper Day! “Two NOTAKABLY LUMINOUS GALAXE Candidates at Z ~ 11-13 Revealed by the Just Wonderful Space Telescope”. T… https://t.co/bmu5agvyyf
One of the main missions of this brand new telescope is to observe the first galaxies formed after the Big Bang, which occurred 13.8 billion years ago. In astronomy, see far amounts to going back in time. The sunlight puts, for example, eight minutes to reach us, and we see it as it was eight minutes ago. Looking as far as possible, we can see objects such as billions of years ago. The light of this galaxy was issued 13.5 billion years ago.
a red circular shape
This study has not yet been verified by peers, but published as a preprint, in order to be quickly accessible to the community of experts. She was subjected to a scientific journal for an upcoming publication, said Rohan Naidu. But already many astronomers enthusiastically commented on this discovery on social networks.
“Records in astronomy already chance”, tweeted window Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate administrator of NASA in charge of science. “Yes, I tend to applaud only in the face of scientific results verified by peers. But this is very promising!”, He added about the study. Another research team concluded in the same results, according to Rohan Naidu, which “gives confidence”.
The galaxy was observed by the Nircam instrument of James-Webb, and detected on what is called a “deep field”, that is to say a wider image taken with a long duration of Exposure to detect the lowest glows.
The particularity of James-Webb is to operate only in the infrared. The light emitted by the oldest objects has stretched and has “blushed” on the way, passing through this wavelength which is not visible by the human eye. To draw an image from this galaxy, the data was therefore “translated” into the visible spectrum: it then appears as a red circular form, rather blurred, and white in its center.
“there is still work “
In reality, the twenty researchers who participated in the study studied two galaxies, the other being called Glass-Z11, less distant. They have surprising characteristics, for the little that we already know: “they appear quite massive”, according to Rohan Naidu, and this from “Very short time after the Big Bang.” “This is something that we does not really understand, “he added.
When did they be formed exactly? Impossible to say it for the moment. “There is still work,” said the researcher. He and his colleagues requested more observation time with the telescope to carry out spectroscopic analyzes – a technique allowing to determine the properties of a distant object thanks to the analysis of the captured light. Which should make it possible to confirm their distance.
The James-Webb telescope was launched in space about six months ago. With a value of $ 10 billion, it was placed 1.5 million kilometers from us. He has enough fuel to operate for twenty years.