The revolution that the observations of James Webb telescope have meant for the science of the cosmos is beginning to bear fruit. A team of researchers led by the Center for Astrobiology (CAB) has discovered the farthest Milky Way-like galaxy of those observed so far, revealing that The universe was more organized than thought from an early era.
The discovery, published this Wednesday in the journal Nature, shows a galaxy that forms a spiral around a bar of stars – similar to the image of the Milky Way – that It would have been formed 11.7 billion years agowhen the universe was only 2.1 billion years old, 15% of its current age, which is estimated at 13.8 billion years.
a spiral galaxy
The discovery of ‘ceers-2112’, the scientific name that researchers have given to the newly found galaxy, dismantles the conception that the structure of spiral galaxiesas the Milky Waywould not have been consolidated until the universe reached half its current age (just under 7 billion years ago).
“Our study reveals that Galaxies similar to the Milky Way already existed 11.7 billion years ago”, one of the main authors, Luca Costantin, researcher at the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) at the CAB in Madrid, explained in an interview with EFE.
“Our study reveals that galaxies similar to the Milky Way already existed 11.7 billion years ago”
Costantin has detailed that ‘ceers-2112’ is considered a barred spiral galaxy “because it presents a kind of spiral arms that rotate around a central area, where there is a bar-shaped structure of stars. And the most peculiar thing is that the galaxy has the same number of stars that our galaxy had at this time in the universe”. 70% of the galaxies known so far in the nearby universe have that spiral structure.
Webb Revolution
The observation of ‘ceers-2112’, the researcher has stressed, has been possible thanks to “to the extraordinary abilities” of the James Webb space telescope, whose technology and instrumentation have made it possible to discover and study in detail the morphology of distant galaxies like this one. Specifically, the scientific data was taken during telescope observations in a region of the sky located between the constellations Ursa Major and Boyero.
And this is just the beginning. Costantin has advanced: “We have ahead of us between 8 and 10 years of observations from this telescope “that will allow the discovery of new galaxies and a better understanding of the physical processes that occurred in the first phase of the Universe’s existence.” The next moves will therefore involve continuing to study the galaxy found to decipher its chemical composition and understand it better.
“We have between 8 and 10 years of observations from this telescope ahead of us that will allow the discovery of new galaxies”
“Investigating how galaxies acquire the structure that characterizes them today is essential to understand the processes of formation and evolution of the Universe,” added another of the authors, Cristina Cabelloresearcher at the Institute of Particle and Cosmos Physics of the Complutense University of Madrid.
“The extraordinary observational work described and interpreted in this study identifies the unexpected existence of highly organized and gravitationally bound matter in the form of a barred galaxy, which contains around 4,000 million solar masses at a time when the Universe was only 2,000 million years old”Juan Pérez-Mercader, principal researcher in Physics applied to Astrophysics and Cosmology at Harvard University, told EFE.
“A lot to learn”
Pérez-Mercader, founder and first director of the CAB, explained that this is an investigation “whose observations and cutting-edge quantitative interpretation point to We still have a lot to learn about the evolution of the Universeand about the history of dark matter and its interaction with baryonic matter (ordinary matter that forms living beings, planets and stars.) to understand the processes that must have occurred to give rise to a galaxy like this” .
This discovery indicates “the presence of a much faster than expected evolution of this galaxy“, which will probably be the first observed of its kind, and will give a lot to study to make sense of it and include it within our understanding of the early history and evolution towards puberty of the Universe,” he added.
“This discovery is a triumph for a new generation of cosmos scientists”
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For the founder of the CAB, this discovery is “a triumph for a new generation of cosmos scientists who can now make and lead an international scale. magnificent scientific research from Spain”.
33 researchers belonging to 29 institutions from 8 countries have participated in this research project. Among the affiliated Spanish institutions, in addition to the CAB, are the Complutense universities of Madrid, La Laguna, Valladolid and the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands.