The James Webb (JWST) space telescope has detected ultraviolet light in a galaxy when the universe was only 330 million years old. The finding indicates that the cosmos had already initiated reion, an essential process that happened in the primitive universe after the formation of the first galaxies.
The research, whose results have been published this Wednesday in the journal Nature, has been carried out by researchers from six European countries “among them from the Astrobiology Center of Spain”, Canada and the United States, with data obtained by the Nirspec instrument of James Webb, operated by the United States Space Agencies (NASA), Europe (ESA) and Canada (CSA).
Cosmic radiation measurements emitted about 380,000 years after the Big Bang show a cosmos full of hot hydrogen and helium gas with almost uniform temperature and density. To give birth, what is called ‘the cosmic dark age’ began, where there were only dark gas, matter and energy; And the stars had not yet “ignited.”
What happened in the following 300 million years of cosmic history is still surrounded by mystery. It is the period called ‘cosmic dawn’, in which, as the universe expanded and cooled, the stars, galaxies and black holes began to emerge and grow from an almost homogeneous gas.
But the James Webb space telescope was designed and equipped to capture the stellar light of that cosmic dawn and can observe more red wavelength than its predecessor, hubble, and detect galaxies less than 300 million years from the Big Bang.
The new study, led by Joris Witstok, of the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), reports the detection of reinforcement evidence in the intergalactic environment around a galaxy (Jades-GS-Z13-1-la) Only 330 million years after the Big Bang, is a finding that is located in the time of the beginning of the cosmic reion. It was known when it had begun.
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James Webb View Cosmic Dawn
After the Big Bang, which took place 13.8 billion years ago, the universe, formed by Helio Hydrogen and gas gradually. That period is called the ‘cosmic dark age’.
Then, the first galaxies would illuminate the universe. Specific ultraviolet wavelength photons (known as Lyman’s continuum) would be absorbed by neutral hydrogen, while the shortest wavelengths more rejected the gas, making the transparent universe to Lyman’s photons and letting them pass to the earth.
That moment, known as the cosmic reion, has been uncertain because although previous observations of the James Webb had identified bright galaxies that produced ultraviolet light when the universe had less than 300 million years old, direct reion tests were missing.
Now, the new study has detected a sign of this process only 330 million years after the Big Bang.
The authors believe that these findings help delimit the beginning of cosmic reion and offer new perspectives on the nature of the first galaxies.
In a perspective entitled “A lighthouse in the fog of the cosmic dawn” and published in the same magazine, Michele Trenti, of the University of Melbourne (Australia) values the results of the study but points out that more observations are needed to get more data that indicates how and when the realization process was developed.
However, it emphasizes, “the JWST is finding more abundant and brilliant galaxies than expected by most the theoretical models of early galaxies.”
“There is no doubt that as the JWST continues its mission there will be more data to study our cosmic origin,” he concludes.
With EFE information.
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