James Webb Space Telescope Discovers Galaxy ‘Died’ Early in Universe’s History

The James Webb Space Telescope since being commissioned in 2022 has revealed many surprises in the early stages of the universe.

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA — Since its operation in 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope has revealed many surprises in the early stages of the universe. Now the telescope found one galaxy which “died” at the earliest, namely when the universe was only five percent of its current age.

Scientists said Wednesday that Webb had spotted a galaxy where star formation stopped about 13.1 billion years ago. It was about 700 million years after the Big Bang event that gave rise to the universe.

“Lots dead galaxy have been detected for many years, but this is the earliest in a period of about 500 million years,” as reported on the page CTV NewsSaturday (9/2/2024).

In some ways, this galaxy is similar to the late Hollywood actor James Dean, famous for his “live fast, die young” story. The galaxy seems to live quickly and intensely.

“And then it stopped forming stars very quickly,” said astrophysicist Tobias Looser of the Kavli Institute for Cosmology at the University of Cambridge, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.

In the first few hundred million years of its history, the universe was very violent and active, with abundant gas fueling the formation of stars in the galaxy. This makes this discovery very confusing and interesting.

This galaxy is relatively small, perhaps containing 100 million to a billion stars. This means the galaxy is around the mass of the Small Magellanic Cloud dwarf galaxy located near the Milky Way, although it is still forming new stars.

Once a galaxy stops forming new stars, it becomes like a stellar graveyard (stellar graveyard). According to Kavli Institute astrophysicist and study co-author Francesco D’Eugenio, once star formation ends, existing stars will die and not be replaced.

This happened…

2024-03-09 02:44:30
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