Galactic Fusion in the Early Universe? Latest Research Results Observed by the Webb Space Telescope | sorae space portal site

The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in the United States operates on October 26.“James Webb”space telescope“Near the infrared camera (NIRCam)”A celestial body that appears to be a galaxy in the early universe, obtained from「MACS0647-JD」the image has been released.

The image shown at the beginning is the image that was released this time.The large image on the left shows a cluster of galaxies about 5.6 billion light-years away in the direction of the constellation Giraffe.「MACS J0647 + 7015」is in the picture. MACS0647-JD’s image comes from this cluster of galaxies“Gravitational lens” effect.（※ 1）fromdivided into threeand eachJD 1 JD 2 」「 JD 3 」identified as. The positions of the three images are indicated by white squares, and the enlarged images of each image are listed on the right.

* 1: A phenomenon in which space-time is distorted by the mass of a celestial body, causing the direction of the light emitted by the celestial body to change to the other side of the celestial body, causing the image on Earth to appear distorted or enlarged.

MACS0647-JD is“Hubble”A celestial body discovered by space telescope observations, the discovery was reported ten years ago, in November 2012. This planet existedAbout 430 million years after the Big Bang, about 13.37 billion years ago(In this study, the redshift z = 10.6 ± 0.3 was derived).

Allied Astronomy Universities (AURA) / STScI, which participates in the research group that made this observationDan CoeMACS0647-JD image is said to be enlarged 8 times for JD1, 5 times for JD2 and 2 times for JD3. Coe is the person who led the research team that reported the discovery of MACS0647-JD from the Hubble Space Telescope.

The Webb Space Telescope cannot be seen by the human eye.Observation mainly by infrared raysAs a result, the colors in posted images may differ from what the human eye sees. For MACS0647-JD, used for observationColored in blue, green and red according to 6 types of filtersWas(※2)。

* 2 … F115W and F150W (wavelength 1.15μm and 1.5μm) are blue, F200W and F277W (wavelength 2.0μm and 2.77μm) are green, F365W and F444W (wavelength 3 , 65μm and 4.44μm) are colored red.

Looking at the enlarged images of each image, MACS0647-JD isdivided into two piecesI understand.The large mass is about 460 light years wide、The little blob is about 130 light-years wideand is estimated to be about 1300 light years away. A Hubble Space Telescope image released 10 years ago could not discern the two halves and is estimated to be around 600 light-years wide.

【▲ An animation comparing the galaxy cluster MACS J0647 + 7015 (left) and the distant space object MACS0647-JD (right) observed by the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope (Credit: Science: NASA , ESA, CSA, STScI, and Tiger Hsiao (Johns Hopkins University); Image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI))]

A graduate student at Johns Hopkins University leading the research teamThe tiger Yu-Yang HsiaoAccording to the blob it hasThe larger one is blue and the smaller one is more redThe color difference (infrared wavelength) is recognized. Blue (shorter wavelengths) indicates that the star is young and contains little dust, while red (longer wavelengths) is old and contains a lot of dust. stars present in each group may be different.

As for MACS0647-JD, which was found to have such a structure, Tiger Hsiao said,Galactic fusion in the early universeHe points out that he may have witnessed (the process of merging multiple galaxies into one galaxy). The team also reported another possible companion galaxy located nearly 10,000 light-years from MACS0647-JD. The research team is planning spectroscopic observations (observations to know the strength of each wavelength of electromagnetic waves) with the Webb Space Telescope in January 2023 and plans to study the physical properties of MACS0647-JD in more detail.

connection:James Webb Space Telescope observes CEERS 93316, the most distant object ever observed!

Source

• Image credit: Science: NASA, ESA, CSA, Dan Coe (STScI), Rebecca Larson (UT), Yu-Yang Hsiao (JHU); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
• STScI – Webb offers previously unseen details of the early universe
• NASA – Webb offers previously unseen details of the early universe
• Tiger Hsiao et al. – JWST reveals possible z∼11 galaxy merger in MACS0647-JD (arXiv) with triple lens

Text / Matsumura Takehiro