James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Found: First Actively Forming Galaxy as Lightweight as Young Milky Way

11 Dec 2024 11:00am Release ID: 2024-116

 

Summary

This galaxy, which is stretched and magnified, glitters with 10 distinct star clusters that formed at different times.

 

Like fireflies “dancing” on a warm summer night, 10 distinct star clusters appear in observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. They are held in a cocoon of diffuse light emitted by other stars scattered around them. This galaxy, known as Firefly Sparkle, was taking shape around 600 million years after the big bang.

 

Caption

For the first time, astronomers have identified a still-forming galaxy that weighs about the same as our Milky Way if we could “wind back the clock” to weigh our galaxy as it developed. The newly identified galaxy, the Firefly Sparkle, is in the process of assembling and forming stars, and existed about 600 million years after the big bang.

 

The galaxy is stretched and warped due to a natural effect known as gravitational lensing, which allowed researchers to glean far more information about its contents. (In some areas of Webb’s image, the galaxy is magnified over 40 times.)

 

While it took shape, the galaxy gleamed with star clusters in a range of infrared colors, which are scientifically meaningful. They indicate that the stars formed at different periods, not all at once.

 

“I didn’t think it would be possible to resolve a galaxy that existed so early in the universe into so many distinct components, let alone discover a Milky Way-mass galaxy in the process of forming,” said Lamiya Mowla, the lead author and an assistant professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.

 

Since the galaxy is stretched into a long line in Webb’s observations, the researchers were able to identify 10 distinct star clusters and study them individually, along with the cocoon of diffuse light from the additional, unresolved stars surrounding them. That’s not always possible...

Read more:

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-116

 

Firefly Sparkle Galaxy and Companions in Galaxy Cluster MACS J1423 

(NIRCam Image Description)

 

A frame split horizontally down the middle: 

At left is a galaxy cluster and background galaxies, showing thousands of overlapping objects at various distances. The background is black. The galaxies’ colors vary, including white, pink, orange, and blue. Most galaxies appear as ovals or dots. Just above center is a bright white oversized oval, a supergiant elliptical galaxy. Around it are many thin, long orange or pink arcs. These are background galaxies that appear stretched and distorted. To the bottom right is the outline of a small box. 

 

On the right side is a zoomed in view of this area. There are two smaller circular outlines flanking a larger central oval outline, labeled Firefly Sparkle galaxy. Within it is a long line, pointing from bottom left to top right with 10 circular star clusters in pink, purple, and blue. The circled galaxy to the bottom left is labeled Companion 1 and looks like a bright red dot. At top right, the circled galaxy labeled Companion 2 is lighter red and surrounded by a red disk.

 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by ➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone