The Webb Space Telescope is ringing in the new year in the same way humans do by capturing images of bright colors in the sky. Not exactly “in the sky,” because Webb itself is a million miles from Earth. And its goal is still very far away. But a state-of-the-art space observatory recently photographed two spiral galaxies of grand design. And one spiral galaxy appears to be the most distant yet identified.
The researchers wrote the paper about two large spiral galaxies, both of which now host On the arXiv pre-print server, an ancient galaxy is named A2744-GDSp-z4; The other, more distant location is called Zhúlóng after the red dragon god of Chinese mythology. The two spiral galaxies were newly discovered and are active. Grand design spiral galaxyThis is a spiral galaxy with very distinct arms. Spiral galaxies with unclear arms are called precipitated spiral galaxies. For reference Our Milky Way is a Barreled spiral galaxyAlthough researchers are still investigating the exact structure and Which sign is most suitable?–
A2744-GDSp-z4 (sorry, no fun nicknames) can be seen below in an overview by Webb. This galaxy weighs about 14 billion times the mass of our sun. And it has a structure that has developed surprisingly well with its age. The existence of galaxies indicates that even 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang Or, in other words, in the early days of the universe's existence. There are already well-articulated spiral galaxies. Although the turbine arms may not be clearly visible to our eyes, But you can see the general shape. Especially in the leftmost picture. The galaxy was found in the Abell 2744 galaxy cluster, one of the Webb clusters. The oldest scientific goal and which has given results before The same is true for distant galaxies.–
Zhulóng, pictured in pink at the top of this article, is “The most distant disk+bulge galaxy with spiral arms known to date,” according to the report, has a mass similar to that of the Milky Way. (This is higher than average for such early galaxies) and the rate of star formation is relatively low. This grand turbine design only produces about 66 solar masses per year. This finding is interesting when paired with previous Webb Telescope data. specified The ancient galaxy was metal-poor and gas-rich. Perhaps Zhúlóng, despite its size, But it still lacks the right properties to speed up the rate of star formation.
The spiral with its most grand design was very far away. This is why they appear as pixels in Webb images. Part of the reason Webb was able to see objects that far away was that it was practical. gravitational lens—A region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that it bends light. This allows us to see objects behind them. when light bends Light is refocused (magnified) for telescopes like the Webb.
In other words Although large galaxies look like smudges, But the pictures are amazing. And Webb is functioning perfectly normally. Nearby galaxies imaged with a telescope will be more clearly visible. Below is a slider showing the different aspects of Webb's tool. of the spiral galaxy with its grand design The image on the left was taken by the Webb Near Infrared Camera, or NIRCam, while the image on the right was taken by the telescope's mid-infrared imager, MIRI. NIRCam captures warmer light from newly formed stars, while MIRI captures warmer light from newly formed stars. Capture galaxy light coming from dust grains and cold gas The galaxies shown here are much sharper than the ancient galaxies discussed in this article. Because it's much closer. It is only 27 million light years away.
Webb continues to shake up our understanding of the evolution of the early universe head-on. This is a feat made possible by the telescope's incredible sensing. Webb could see through enormous gas clouds that blocked out the faintest, most distant lights. This allows researchers to take images of objects from the early universe. Over the past two years, Webb has photographed galaxy That happened only a few hundred million years ago. After the Big Bang and raises new questions It's about how those structures unfold over long periods of time.