For quite a long time, scientists believed that galaxies at the very beginning of their journey, literally in the first days (if Earth days, of course, can be used for such measurements) of the existence of the Universe, looked quite “young” and eventually transformed, acquiring those outlines and physical properties that are characteristic of galaxies formed much later. But the latest James Webb Space Telescope has provided information that has forced scientists around the world to change their minds dramatically — they believe the $10 billion telescope has just changed everyone’s view of the cosmos.
Specialists as part of the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science research program used the James Webb telescope to literally look into the distant past – the telescope’s hardware allows you to study galaxies in the form in which they existed 11-13 billion years ago. These are practically the oldest space objects in the Universe that were formed after the Big Bang, but as a result of research, scientists said that the first galaxies at the beginning of their journey look much more mature, developed and diverse than previously thought. Galaxies at the beginning of their journey already had disks and spheroidal components, which were previously considered to be characteristic features of newer galaxies.
To put it simply, early galaxies, some of the very first in the universe, according to information from the space telescope, are much more like relatively new galaxies than scientists previously thought.
“This tells us that we don’t yet know when the earliest galactic structures formed. We do not yet see the very first galaxies with disks. We will have to explore many more galaxies with even greater offsets to really determine at what point in time such features as disks could form, ”said Jeyhan Kartaltepe, assistant professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
At the moment, humanity is aware of more than 1.6 million galaxies, but, apparently, James Webb will allow us to discover even more. And some of them will probably be the very first in the universe.
Source: Trash Box
Charles Grill is a tech-savvy writer with over 3 years of experience in the field. He writes on a variety of technology-related topics and has a strong focus on the latest advancements in the industry. He is connected with several online news websites and is currently contributing to a technology-focused platform.
