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Researchers analyzing images from NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope have found that galaxies in the early universe are often flat and elongated, like surfboards and pool noodles \u2013 and are rarely round, like volleyballs or frisbees. \u201cRoughly 50 to 80% of the galaxies we studied appear to be flattened in two dimensions,\u201d explained lead author Viraj Pandya, a NASA Hubble Fellow at Columbia University in New York. \u201cGalaxies that look like pool noodles or surfboards seem to be very common in the early universe, which is surprising, since they are uncommon nearby.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team focused on a vast field of near-infrared images delivered by Webb, known as the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey<\/a>, plucking out galaxies that are estimated to exist when the universe was 600 million to 6 billion years old.<\/p>\n While most distant galaxies look like surfboards and pool noodles, others are shaped like frisbees and volleyballs. The \u201cvolleyballs,\u201d or sphere-shaped galaxies, appear the most compact type on the cosmic \u201cocean\u201d and were also the least frequently identified. The frisbees were found to be as large as the surfboard- and pool noodle-shaped galaxies along the \u201chorizon,\u201d but become more common closer to \u201cshore\u201d in the nearby universe. (Compare them in this illustration<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Which category would our Milky Way galaxy<\/a> fall into if we were able to wind the clock back by billions of years? \u201cOur best guess is that it might have appeared more like a surfboard,\u201d said co-author Haowen Zhang, a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona in Tucson. This hypothesis is based partly on new evidence from Webb \u2013 theorists have \u201cwound back the clock\u201d to estimate the Milky Way\u2019s mass billions of years ago, which correlates with shape at that time.<\/p>\n These distant galaxies are also far less massive than nearby spirals and ellipticals \u2013 they are precursors to more massive galaxies like our own. \u201cIn the early universe, galaxies had had far less time to grow,\u201d said Kartheik Iyer, a co-author and NASA Hubble Fellow also at Columbia University. \u201cIdentifying additional categories for early galaxies is exciting \u2013 there\u2019s a lot more to analyze now. We can now study how galaxies\u2019 shapes relate to how they look and better project how they formed in much more detail.\u201d<\/p>\n Webb\u2019s sensitivity, high-resolution images, and specialization in infrared light<\/a> allowed the team to make quick work of characterizing many CEERS galaxies, and model their 3D geometries. Pandya also says their work wouldn\u2019t be possible without the extensive research astronomers have done using NASA\u2019s Hubble Space Telescope.<\/p>\n For decades, Hubble has wowed us with images of some of the earliest galaxies, beginning with its first \u201cdeep field\u201d in 1995<\/a> and continuing with a seminal survey known as Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey. Deep sky surveys like these led to far greater statistics, leading astronomers to create robust 3D models of distant galaxies over all of cosmic time<\/a>. Today, Webb is helping to enhance these efforts, adding a bounty of distant galaxies beyond Hubble\u2019s reach and revealing the early universe in far greater detail than previously possible.<\/p>\n Webb\u2019s images of the early universe have acted like an ocean swell \u2013 delivering new waves of evidence. \u201cHubble has long showed an excess of elongated galaxies,\u201d explained co-author Marc Huertas-Company, a faculty research scientist at the Institute of Astrophysics on the Canary Islands. But researchers still wondered: Would additional detail show up better with sensitivity to infrared light? \u201cWebb confirmed that Hubble didn\u2019t miss any additional features in the galaxies they both observed. Plus, Webb showed us many more distant galaxies with similar shapes, all in great detail.\u201d<\/p>\n There are still gaps in our knowledge \u2013 researchers not only need an even larger sample size from Webb to further refine the properties and precise locations of distant galaxies, they will also need to spend ample time tweaking and updating their models to better reflect the precise geometries of distant galaxies. \u201cThese are early results,\u201d said co-author Elizabeth McGrath, an associate professor at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. \u201cWe need to delve more deeply into the data to figure out what\u2019s going on, but we\u2019re very excited about these early trends.\u201d<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/stsci-01hhz8tvcpcysd1dqfqkmsvqtr.png\")