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| NASA |
NEWSLINE PAPER,- Scientists have just identified the formation process of some of the earliest galaxies in the universe.
Observations by the James Webb Telescope of the early universe about 13.3 to 13.4 billion years ago have revealed signs of a gas reservoir actively sucked into three newly formed and evolving galaxies.
"It could be said that it was the first direct picture of galaxy formation we've ever seen," said astrophysicist Kasper Elm Heintz of the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark, who led the research.
Citing Science Alert, Monday (27/5/2024) although before James Webb had shown us the early galaxies at the stage of evolution, here we witnessed their birth, and thus the formation of the first star systems in the universe.
According to researchers, the earliest galaxies were formed in the era known as the Cosmic Dawn, about 1 billion years after the Big Bang was covered by a hydrogen fog.
James Webb was designed to penetrate the fog because the infrared wavelengths used to see the cosmos are more easily penetrating and sliding further than other wavelengts.
So Heintz and his team used the powerful James Webb telescope's infrared wave to gaze into the Cosmic Dawn, where they detected three galaxy signals.
Specifically, the signal is emitted from the neutral hydrogen that surrounds it as the gas absorbs and re-emits the light of the galaxy.
The galaxy, according to the researchers, is about 400 to 600 million years after the Big Bang. (terjadi 13,8 miliar tahun lalu).
That makes the three galaxies among the earliest.
In addition, the researchers were able to distinguish the gas reservoir around the galaxy from the intergalactic neutral gas.
These specified reservoirs are quite large in size, covering most of each galaxy, suggesting that they are actively forming into galaxy material.
And the fact that there is so much of this gas also suggests that, at the time of the observation, these galaxies have not yet formed most of their stars.
Furthermore, there's still a lot of questions about Cosmic Dawn.
Researchers have just dug the surface and there are still many secrets that have not been revealed.
Despite this, the three already identified galaxies are a rare advanced one.
Now that we know where these galaxies exist, we can observe them closer to better understand the process of galaxy formation.
(Newsline Paper Teams)