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Groundbreaking observations by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe the massive object as it was 510 million years after the Big Bang – i.e. around 13 billion years ago.
“When we conducted these observations, this galaxy was ten times more massive than any other galaxy found that early in the Universe,” says Dr. Kit Boyett, an ASTRO 3D Research Fellow on First Galaxies, from the University of Melbourne. He is lead author on a paper published recently in Nature Astronomy. The paper has 27 authors from 19 institutions in Australia, Thailand, Italy, the USA, Japan, Denmark and China.
JWST, launched in 2021, is enabling astronomers to see the early Universe in ways that were previously impossible. Objects that appeared as single points of light through earlier telescopes such as the
“It is amazing to see the power of JWST to provide a detailed view of galaxies at the edge of the observable Universe and therefore back in time,” says Prof. Michele Trenti, ASTRO 3D First Galaxies theme leader and University of Melbourne node leader. “This space observatory is transforming our understanding of early galaxy formation” adds Prof. Trenti.
The observations in the current paper show a galaxy consisting of several groups with two components in the main group and a long tail, suggesting an ongoing merger of two galaxies into a larger one.
“The merger hasn’t finished yet. We can tell this by the fact we still see two components. The long tail is likely produced by some of the matter being cast aside during the merger. When two things merge, they sort of throw away some of the matter. So, this tells us that…
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