The IAC finds surprises in Spiderweb protocluster field

ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, H. Dannerbauer
ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, H. Dannerbauer
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A team of researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), collaborating with other international institutions, has managed to find new galaxies in the Spiderweb protocluster. This was possible thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, which is a project of the space agencies of the United States (NASA), Europe (ESA) and Canada (CSA).

Exploring the populations of galaxies, and discovering their physical properties in large scale structures helps astronomers to understand galaxy formation and how their assembly is determined by their environment. The “Spiderweb” protocluster is an object in the early universe which has been widely studied. Its light has travelled for more than 10,000 million years to reach us, and shows us a cluster of galaxies in formation, comprising more than one hundred known galaxies.

Thanks to the capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) the IAC team and its international collaborators have been able to better understand this protocluster, and to discover the existence of new galaxies within it. The IAC team managed to get its observing proposal with the JWST approved during the first year of the telescope’s activity, and it was one of the only two approved programmes led by researchers from Spanish institutes during that period. Thanks to observing in the infrared spectral range, it was possible to overcome the obstruction by cosmic dust, which acts as a curtain and does not allow visible light to pass through, revealing star forming regions in this protocluster which had previously been inaccesible.

This study, which has been published in two articles in the Astrophysical Journal, used observations by the NIRCam, near infrared camera, on the JWST. 

"We are observing the building of one of the largest structures in the universe, a “city” of galaxies under construction", explains José M. Pérez-Martínez, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of La Laguna (ULL), in Spain, and the first author of one of the two articles.

Image removed.
Spiderweb galaxy protocluster, a 'cosmic metropolis' in the early Universe. Left: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) color image of the Spiderweb protocluster combining the light from four different filters. The white rectangle highlights its central region. Center and right: Close-up of the protocluster's central region as seen in the optical by the ground-based Subaru Telescope and in the infrared by the JWST. Our project has revealed hidden dusty galaxies at unprecedented spatial resolution. Image Credits: JWST - Dr. Helmut Dannerbauer (IAC); Subaru/NAOJ - Prof. Tadayuki Kodama (Tohoku University)  ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, H. Dannerbauer

Pérez-Martínez adds that “Now we know that the majority of the galaxies situated in the local clusters of galaxies, which are the largest capital cities in the universe, are old and not very active, whereas in this study we are observing similar objects during their adolescence. As this city under construction grows, its physical properties are affected. Now the JWST gives us for the first time new perspectives on the building of this kind of structures”.

This annotated image shows hundreds of galaxies appearing in this view, which is set against the black background of space. There are many overlapping objects at various distances. Dozens of galaxies are individually identified with white circles, and a large white circle in the centre of the image highlights the collection of gravitationally-bound galaxies in the field. The objects visible in the image include large, blue foreground stars, some with eight diffraction spikes, and white and pink spiral and elliptical galaxies, as well as numerous tiny orange dots that appear throughout the scene.]Credit:ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, H. Dannerbauer 

Advantages of observation from space

The advantage of observations from space is that they avoid interference by the atmosphere and achieve better results than ground-based observations. This allowed the team to discover new galaxies in this cluster which were inaccesible, because they were hidden by large clouds of stellar dust.

“As we expected, we found new members of this proto-cluster of galaxies, but we did not expect to find so many” explains the Principal Investigator of this project, Helmut Dannerbauer, of the IAC, and he adds that “Thanks to these observations we discovered that the previously known galaxies in this proto-cluster (analogues of the Milky Way but in the early universe) are less obscured or filled with stellar dust than we expected, which was another surprise."

This annotated image shows hundreds of galaxies appearing in this view, which is set against the black background of space. There are many overlapping objects at various distances. Dozens of galaxies are individually identified with white circles, and a large white circle in the centre of the image highlights the collection of gravitationally-bound galaxies in the field. The bottom of the image shows a closeup of seven of these central galaxies. The objects visible in the image include large, blue foreground stars, some with eight diffraction spikes, and white and pink spiral and elliptical galaxies, as well as numerous tiny orange dots that appear throughout the scene.]Credit:ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, H. Dannerbauer

Another member of the team, and an expert in the use of NIRCam, Pablo Pérez González, researcher at the Centre of Astrobiology in Madrid, says that the explanation of this finding “is that the growth of these typical galaxies is not triggered mainly by interactions or mergers of galaxies which stimulate star formation”. He says also that “Now we think that star formation can be explained by the accumulation of gas in various parts of the large-scale structures such as the Spider’s Web proto-cluster."

Apart from the planning and the execution of the project, the IAC contributed especially with the comparison between the observations with the JWST and previous observations in the visible. After these results, the team is planning to continue moving forward in the study of the newly discovered galaxies using spectroscopy, above all with the JWST, in order to confirm their existence and to measure their physical properties.

The James Webb Telescope

The James Web Space Telescope is the largest and most powerful telescope ever launched into space. Under the terms of an international agreement, ESA provided the launch of the telescope, using the launch vehicle Ariane 5.

Links

Scientific article (R. Shimakawa et. al) 

Scientific article (J. M. Pérez-Martínez et. al)

ESA Press Release

Contacts

José Manuel Pérez Martínez

Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, España

Correo electrónico: jm.perez [at] iac.es (jm[dot]perez[at]iac[dot]es)

Helmut Dannerbauer 

Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, España

Correo electrónico: helmut [at] iac.es (helmut[at]iac[dot]es)

 

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Press release

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