The James Webba Cosmic Telescope has made a groundbreaking discovery, finding a mysterious galaxy known as aztecc71 with active star formation from the Early Universe. This discovery challenges previous assumptions about the prevalence and composition of galaxies, providing new insights into the history and evolution of space.
Aztecc71 initially caught the attention of terrestrial telescopes as a luminous object, but disappeared from view in images captured by the Hubble telescope. However, it has now reappeared as a faint yet distinguishable galaxy in the image captured by the JWST.
Scientists from the Cosmos-Web community have identified Aztecc71 as a dusty star-forming galaxy that emerged approximately one billion years after a major explosion. It was previously believed that such galaxies were extremely rare in the early universe, but the discovery of more than a dozen similar objects in Cosmos-Web data suggests that their abundance may be three to ten times greater than expected.
“This galaxy is truly extraordinary,” says Jed McKinni, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. “It produces hundreds of new stars every year. The fact that such an extreme object is barely noticeable in the most sensitive images from our latest telescope is highly intriguing. It raises the possibility that an entire population of galaxies has been hidden from us.”
If this finding is confirmed, it would imply that the early universe was much more rich in dust than previously thought. The study detailing this discovery has been published in an astrophysical journal.
The Cosmos-Web project is the largest research initiative utilizing the JWST, with the aim of mapping up to a million galaxies in the sky, each the size of three full moons. The project’s main objective is to investigate the early structures of the universe. A team of over 50 researchers has been allocated 250 hours of observation time during the first year of JWST, and they have already received their first batch of data in December 2022, with subsequent data expected until January 2024.
Technological advancements and future studies reveal that dusty star-forming galaxies are challenging to observe in optical light, as much of the light emitted by their stars is absorbed by a dusty veil and re-emitted at longer wavelengths. Prior to the JWST, astronomers sometimes referred to these galaxies as “Hubble-tacs.”
“Until now, the only way to observe galaxies in the early universe was through the optical lens of the Hubble telescope. This meant that our understanding of the evolution of galaxies was limited, as we only saw less obscured, less dusty galaxies,” notes McKinny.
The team is