The James Webb Space Telescope captured this image of a galaxy cluster (SMACS0723). The 5 zoomed in galaxies are so far away that we observe them as they were when the Universe was in between one and five billion years old.
Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescopes very first pictures of galaxy clusters, researchers have, for the extremely first time, had the ability to analyze very compact structures of star clusters inside galaxies, so-called clumps. In a paper released in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, scientists from Stockholm University have actually studied the first phase of star formation in remote galaxies.
” The galaxy clusters we took a look at are so massive that they bend light rays passing through their center, as forecasted by Einstein in 1915. And this in turn produces a kind of magnifying glass impact: the images of background galaxies are amplified,” explains Adélaïde Claeyssens, Department of Astronomy, Stockholm University, one of the lead authors of the research study.
The magnifying glass impact together with the resolution of the James Webb Space Telescope made it possible for the scientists to discover stellar clumps, extremely compact galaxy structures. These observations allowed the researchers to study the link between clump development and advancement and galaxy development a few million years after the Big Bang. And that in a method that has actually not been possible previously.
” The images from the James Webb Space Telescope reveal that we can now find very small structures inside really remote galaxies which we can see these clumps in a lot of these galaxies. The telescope is a game-changer for the entire field of research and helps us comprehend how galaxies form and develop”, states Angela Adamo, Oscar Klein Center, Stockholm University, among the lead authors of the research study.
The oldest galaxy studied in the paper is up until now away that we see what it looked like 13 billion years back, when deep space was only 680 million years of ages.
Recommendation: “Star development at the tiniest scales; A JWST research study of the clump populations in SMACS0723” by Adélaïde Claeyssens, Angela Adamo, Johan Richard, Guillaume Mahler, Matteo Messa and Miroslava Dessauges-Zavadsky, 5 January 2023, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.DOI: 10.1093/ mnras/stac3791.