The James Webb Telescope has helped to find a ‘gassy’ galaxy – where gas shines brighter than the stars – which could help further unveil the mystery of the universe's inception.
The galaxy, named GS-NDG-9422, caught the attention of astronomers because of its unique light signature, which suggested that gas in the star system is brighter than the stars. Its extreme brightness comes from many photons of light hitting the gas cloud.
While this is a new astronomical phenomenon, the discovery might be a breakthrough in decoding the universe's inception and provide a better understanding of what happened in the first billion years after the Big Bang.
There has long been a missing link in the galactic evolution between the universe's first stars and familiar, well-established galaxies. The phase of brightly shining gases could come in between, as a cloud of dense “shiny” gas indicates an active star-making process.
According to scientists, these stars are hotter and more massive than the ones located in the local universe – a term astronomers use for the region of space relatively close to Earth, usually within a few hundred million light-years.
In the local universe, massive stars typically have temperatures ranging from 40,000 to 50,000 degrees Celsius. According to the team of astronomers, the newly discovered galaxy contains stars that are twice as hot, reaching temperatures of up to 80,000 degrees Celsius.
The galaxy was discovered using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). After the initial discovery, a joint team of astronomers from the US, European, and Canadian space agencies created computer models simulating the cosmic gas clouds heated by very hot, massive stars. By heating the simulated clouds to a level where they shone brighter than at the start, astronomers found a perfect match with the telescope's observations.
"My first thought in looking at the galaxy's spectrum was, 'that's weird,' which is exactly what the Webb telescope was designed to reveal: totally new phenomena in the early universe that will help us understand how the cosmic story began," said lead researcher Dr. Alex Cameron, of the University of Oxford.
James Webb Telescope solving the mysteries of the universe
Since its launch, the Webb telescope has significantly contributed to space observation. Just this year, many discoveries have been made by scientists using NASA’s and the ESA’s largest telescope in space.
In July, the James Webb Space Telescope confirmed astronomers' previous predictions that exoplanets have eternal daytime and nighttime.
The same month, it assisted in discovering an exoplanet that could be the closest habitable world to Earth. The surface temperature in the middle of this alien ocean could even be a pleasant 20 degrees Celsius, all of which suggests that the planet is a promising “super-Earth,” according to researchers.
In September, the telescope also helped to discover a black hole, that ‘starves’ its galaxies to death.
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