Astronomers discover that the first galaxies had very different shapes to today's galaxies

Distant galaxies identified by JWST
Sample of distant galaxies identified in the James Webb Space Telescope's CEERS survey (NIRCam image). Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, UT Austin
Advertised on

Thanks to images obtained by the James Webb Telescope (JWST), an international scientific team in which the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) participates has been able to verify that galaxies in the early universe are usually flat and elongated, and not round or spiral like the nearest galaxies.

International research has found, by analysing high-resolution, infrared images of the JWST, that flattened oval disc and tube-shaped galaxies were much more common when the universe was between 600 million and 6 billion years old. In contrast, the nearest galaxies have clearly defined spiral and elliptical shapes with star-studded arms.

“Roughly 50 to 80% of the galaxies we studied appear to be flattened in two dimensions,” explained lead author Viraj Pandya, a NASA Hubble Fellow at Columbia University in New York. “Galaxies that look like pool noodles or surfboards seem to be very common in the early universe, which is surprising, since they are uncommon nearby.”

According to the study, these distant galaxies are also much less massive than nearby spiral and elliptical galaxies, as they had less time to grow in the early universe. Thanks to the data obtained, the scientific team has been able to go back billions of years in time to estimate the shape and mass of the Milky Way. “Our best guess is that it might have appeared more like a surfboard,” said co-author Haowen Zhang, a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona in Tucson. 

Clasificaciones 3D de galaxias lejanas
3D classifications of distant galaxies in the Webb CEERS survey (NIRCam image). Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Steve Finkelstein (UT Austin), Micaela Bagley (UT Austin), Rebecca Larson (UT Austin)

The team has focused on the JWST image catalogue known as the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey. However, analysis of previous observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope, such as its first "deep field" in 1995 and the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey developed between 2010 and 2013, has also played a role. 

“Hubble has long showed an excess of elongated galaxies,” explained co-author Marc Huertas-Company, a faculty research scientist at the Institute of Astrophysics on the Canary Islands. “Webb confirmed that Hubble didn’t miss any additional features in the galaxies they both observed. Plus, Webb showed us many more distant galaxies with similar shapes, all in great detail.”

For the team, this discovery is only a first result. The scientific community will need a larger sample of JWST observations to further refine the precise properties and locations of distant galaxies, which will also allow for fine-tuning and updating models of how the three-dimensional geometries of galaxies evolve over cosmic time.

Article: Viraj Pandya, Haowen Zhang, Marc Huertas-Company et al. “Galaxies Going Bananas: Inferring the 3D Geometry of High-Redshift Galaxies with JWST-CEERS”. DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2310.15232

Contact at the IAC:

Marc Huertas Company, mhuertas [at] iac.es (mhuertas[at]iac[dot]es)

Related news
Webb's First Deep Field
Press release
The James Webb telescope produces an unparalleled view of the ghostly light in galaxy clusters
A recent study, entirely done by researchers at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has produced the most complete analysis to date of the intracluster light, the diffuse and faint light emitted by stars in galaxy clusters which are not gravitationally bound to any galaxy. This result was based on data obtained by the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The research gives new clues about the formation processes of galaxy clusters, and the properties of dark matter. The article was published in the specialized journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters . In clusters of galaxies
Advertised on
Cosmic Seahorse
Press release
Astronomers find Milky Way analogue galaxy in the early universe
An international team, including researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), used combined data from different radio telescopes located in Spain to probe the mode of star formation in a galaxy when the universe had less than 30% of its current age. They revealed that the properties of the molecular gas reservoir are similar to the one of our own Galaxy, unseen up to now in the distant universe. The paper is published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. A major question in the study of galaxies is on the mode of star formation, how efficient the conversion of cold gas
Advertised on
News type
Photomontage
Scope
Science and Technology
Astrophysics
General public
Communications media
Formation & Evolution of Galaxies (FYEG)
Galaxies
Galaxy evolution

It may interest you

  • Presentation of the Junior Research Award
    Photomontage
    IAC astrophysicist Arianna Di Cintio receives the Junior Research Award at ULL's Institutional Day
    Arianna Di Cintio, researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and professor at the University of La Laguna, was awarded yesterday Monday, March 11, at the awards gala held for the Institutional Day of the University of La Laguna. The award corresponds to the junior category, referring to research personnel born after 1984, recognizing the quality of research at the scientific and social level and for its particular value and interest in the socioeconomic environment, its social repercussion and international impact. Di Cintio is an Italian researcher specialized in galaxy
    Advertised on
  • An artist’s concept of the exoplanet SPECULOOS-3 b orbiting its red dwarf star. The planet is as big around as Earth, while its star is slightly bigger than Jupiter – but much more massive. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
    Press release
    Astronomers discover Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting ultra-cool star
    An international scientific team, with the participation of researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has found a new world similar in size to our planet orbiting an ultra-cold red dwarf located about 55 light-years away. Observations from the SPECULOOS telescope network, which includes the ARTEMIS telescope at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife, have made this discovery possible. The Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma, has also played a key role in confirming the discovery, providing some of the most accurate ground
    Advertised on
  • Artist's impression of a binary star system
    Press release
    Study reveals how binary stars change their stellar dance with age
    Research led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has discovered that, in binary systems, stars that evolve into red giants change the way they rotate with their companions, making their orbits more circular. The result was achieved after studying nearly 1000 solar-like oscillating stars in binary systems, the greatest yield to date of such objects. For their identification, the third Gaia Data Release (Gaia-DR3) and NASA Kepler and TESS catalogs have been explored. The study has been published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics and has been selected as the most recent
    Advertised on