{"id":8722,"date":"2023-01-05T20:35:01","date_gmt":"2023-01-06T01:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/?p=8722"},"modified":"2023-01-05T20:35:01","modified_gmt":"2023-01-06T01:35:01","slug":"james-webb-telescope-reveals-milky-way-like-galaxies-in-young-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/?p=8722","title":{"rendered":"James Webb Telescope Reveals Milky Way-Like Galaxies in Young Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"
Montage of JWST images showing six example barred galaxies, two of which represent the highest lookback times quantitatively identified and characterized to date. The labels in the top left of each figure show the lookback time of each galaxy, ranging from 8.4 to 11 billion years ago (Gyr), when the universe was a mere 40% to 20% of its present age.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

New images from NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal for the first time galaxies with stellar bars \u2014 elongated features of stars stretching from the centers of galaxies into their outer disks \u2014 at a time when the universe was a mere 25% of its present age. The finding of so-called barred galaxies, similar to our Milky Way, this early in the universe will require astrophysicists to refine their theories of galaxy evolution.<\/p>\n

Prior to JWST, images from the Hubble Space Telescope had never detected bars at such young epochs. In a Hubble image, one galaxy, EGS-23205, is little more than a disk-shaped smudge, but in the corresponding JWST image taken this past summer, it\u2019s a beautiful spiral galaxy with a clear stellar bar.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took one look at these data, and I said, \u2018We are dropping everything else!\u2019\u201d said Shardha Jogee, professor of astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin. \u201cThe bars hardly visible in Hubble data just popped out in the JWST image, showing the tremendous power of JWST to see the underlying structure in galaxies,\u201d she said, describing data from the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey<\/a> (CEERS), led by UT Austin professor, Steven Finkelstein.<\/p>\n

The power of JWST to map galaxies at high resolution and at longer infrared wavelengths than Hubble allows it look through dust and unveil the underlying structure and mass of distant galaxies. This can be seen in these two images of the galaxy EGS23205, seen as it was about 11 billion years ago. In the HST image (left, taken in the near-infrared filter), the galaxy is little more than a disk-shaped smudge obscured by dust and impacted by the glare of young stars, but in the corresponding JWST mid-infrared image (taken this past summer), it\u2019s a beautiful spiral galaxy with a clear stellar bar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The team identified another barred galaxy, EGS-24268, also from about 11 billion years ago, which makes two barred galaxies existing farther back in time than any previously discovered.<\/p>\n

In an article accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters<\/em><\/a>, they highlight these two galaxies and show examples of four other barred galaxies from more than 8 billion years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor this study, we are looking at a new regime where no one had used this kind of data or done this kind of quantitative analysis before,\u201d said Yuchen \u201cKay\u201d Guo, a graduate student who led the analysis, \u201cso everything is new. It\u2019s like going into a forest that nobody has ever gone into.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bars play an important role in galaxy evolution by funneling gas into the central regions, boosting star formation. <\/p>\n