探花直播 of Cambridge - universe /taxonomy/subjects/universe en Webb Telescope sees galaxy in mysteriously clearing fog of early Universe /research/news/webb-telescope-sees-galaxy-in-mysteriously-clearing-fog-of-early-universe <div class="field field-name-field-news-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img class="cam-scale-with-grid" src="/sites/default/files/styles/content-580x288/public/news/research/news/weic2505a-dp.jpg?itok=GSm7BFaa" alt="JADES-GS-z13-1 in the GOODS-S field" title="JADES-GS-z13-1 in the GOODS-S field, Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, STScI, CSA, JADES Collaboration" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>A key goal of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has been to see further than ever before into the distant past of our Universe, when the first galaxies were forming after the Big Bang, a period know as cosmic dawn.</p> <p>Researchers studying one of those very early galaxies have now made a discovery in the spectrum of its light, that challenges our established understanding of the Universe鈥檚 early history. Their聽<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08779-5">results</a> are reported in the journal <em>Nature</em>.</p> <p>Webb discovered the incredibly distant galaxy JADES-GS-z13-1, observed at just 330 million years after the Big Bang. Researchers used the galaxy鈥檚 brightness in different infrared filters to estimate its redshift, which measures a galaxy鈥檚 distance from Earth based on how its light has been stretched out during its journey through expanding space.</p> <p> 探花直播NIRCam imaging yielded an initial redshift estimate of 12.9. To confirm its extreme redshift, an international team led by Dr Joris Witstok, previously of the 探花直播 of Cambridge鈥檚 Kavli Institute for Cosmology, observed the galaxy using Webb鈥檚 Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument.</p> <p> 探花直播resulting spectrum confirmed the redshift to be 13.0. This equates to a galaxy seen just 330 million years after the Big Bang, a small fraction of the Universe鈥檚 present age of 13.8 billion years.</p> <p>But an unexpected feature also stood out: one specific, distinctly bright wavelength of light, identified as the Lyman-伪 emission radiated by hydrogen atoms. This emission was far stronger than astronomers thought possible at this early stage in the Universe鈥檚 development.</p> <p>鈥 探花直播early Universe was bathed in a thick fog of neutral hydrogen,鈥 said co-author Professor Roberto Maiolino from Cambridge鈥檚 Kavli Institute for Cosmology. 鈥淢ost of this haze was lifted in a process called reionisation, which was completed about one billion years after the Big Bang.</p> <p>鈥淕S-z13-1 is seen when the Universe was only 330 million years old, yet it shows a surprisingly clear, telltale signature of Lyman-伪 emission that can only be seen once the surrounding fog has fully lifted. This result was totally unexpected by theories of early galaxy formation and has caught astronomers by surprise.鈥</p> <p>Before and during the epoch of reionisation, neutral hydrogen fog surrounding galaxies blocked any energetic ultraviolet light they emitted, much like the filtering effect of coloured glass. Until enough stars had formed and were able to ionise the hydrogen gas, no such light 鈥 including Lyman-伪 emission 鈥 could escape from these fledgling galaxies to reach Earth.</p> <p> 探花直播confirmation of Lyman-伪 radiation from this galaxy has great implications for our understanding of the early Universe. 鈥淲e really shouldn鈥檛 have found a galaxy like this, given our understanding of the way the Universe has evolved,鈥 said co-author Kevin Hainline from the 探花直播 of Arizona. 鈥淲e could think of the early Universe as shrouded with a thick fog that would make it exceedingly difficult to find even powerful lighthouses peeking through, yet here we see the beam of light from this galaxy piercing the veil.鈥</p> <p> 探花直播source of the Lyman-伪 radiation from this galaxy is not yet known, but it may include the first light from the earliest generation of stars to form in the Universe. 鈥 探花直播large bubble of ionised hydrogen surrounding this galaxy might have been created by a peculiar population of stars 鈥 much more massive, hotter and more luminous than stars formed at later epochs, and possibly representative of the first generation of stars,鈥 said Witstok, who is now based at the Cosmic Dawn Center at the 探花直播 of Copenhagen. A powerful active galactic nucleus, driven by one of the first supermassive black holes, is another possibility identified by the team.</p> <p> 探花直播team plans further follow-up observations of GS-z13-1, aiming to obtain more information about the nature of this galaxy and origin of its strong Lyman-伪 radiation. Whatever the galaxy is concealing, it is certain to illuminate a new frontier in cosmology.</p> <p>JWST is an international partnership between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). 探花直播data for this result were captured as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES).</p> <p><em><strong>Reference:</strong><br /> Joris Witstok et al. 鈥<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08779-5">Witnessing the onset of reionization through Lyman-伪 emission at redshift 13</a>.鈥 Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08779-5</em></p> <p><em>Adapted from an ESA media release.</em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-content-summary field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><p>Astronomers have identified a bright hydrogen emission from a galaxy in the very early Universe. 探花直播surprise finding is challenging researchers to explain how this light could have pierced the thick fog of neutral hydrogen that filled space at that time.</p> </p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-content-quote field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">This result was totally unexpected by theories of early galaxy formation and has caught astronomers by surprise</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-content-quote-name field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Roberto Maiolino</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image-credit field-type-link-field field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="https://esawebb.org/images/weic2505a/" target="_blank">ESA/Webb, NASA, STScI, CSA, JADES Collaboration</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image-desctiprion field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">JADES-GS-z13-1 in the GOODS-S field</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-cc-attribute-text field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" rel="license"><img alt="Creative Commons License." src="/sites/www.cam.ac.uk/files/inner-images/cc-by-nc-sa-4-license.png" style="border-width: 0px; width: 88px; height: 31px;" /></a><br /> 探花直播text in this work is licensed under a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>. Images, including our videos, are Copyright 漏 探花直播 of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways 鈥 on our <a href="/">main website</a> under its <a href="/about-this-site/terms-and-conditions">Terms and conditions</a>, and on a <a href="/about-this-site/connect-with-us">range of channels including social media</a> that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-show-cc-text field-type-list-boolean field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Yes</div></div></div> Wed, 26 Mar 2025 16:00:00 +0000 sc604 248804 at Cambridge Festival Speaker Spotlight: Professor Hiranya Peiris /stories/cambridge-festival-spotlights/hiranya-peiris <div class="field field-name-field-content-summary field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><p>Hiranya Peiris holds the Professorship of Astronomy (1909) at Cambridge, the first woman to do so in the 115-year history of this prestigious chair. As a cosmologist, she delves into cosmic mysteries at the edge of our understanding, reaching back to the very first moments of the Universe after the Big Bang, often treading the path of high risk and high reward.</p> </p></div></div></div> Thu, 06 Mar 2025 16:49:17 +0000 zs332 248751 at Earliest detection of metal challenges what we know about the first galaxies /research/news/earliest-detection-of-metal-challenges-what-we-know-about-the-first-galaxies <div class="field field-name-field-news-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img class="cam-scale-with-grid" src="/sites/default/files/styles/content-580x288/public/news/research/news/stsci-01hz08fhg5g8q9ddgcsdd74wtj-2-dp.jpg?itok=rj4nXEGu" alt="Deep field image from JWST" title="Deep field image from JWST, Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Brant Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), Ben Johnson (CfA), Sandro Tacchella (Cambridge), Phill Cargile (CfA)" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international team of astronomers led by the 探花直播 of Cambridge observed a very young galaxy in the early universe and found that it contained surprising amounts of carbon, one of the seeds of life as we know it.</p> <p>In astronomy, elements heavier than hydrogen or helium are classed as metals. 探花直播very early universe was almost entirely made up of hydrogen, the simplest of the elements, with small amounts of helium and tiny amounts of lithium.</p> <p>Every other element that makes up the universe we observe today was formed inside a star. When stars explode as supernovas, the elements they produce are circulated throughout their host galaxy, seeding the next generation of stars. With every new generation of stars and 鈥榮tardust鈥, more metals are formed, and after billions of years, the universe evolves to a point where it can support rocky planets like Earth and life like us.</p> <p> 探花直播ability to trace the origin and evolution of metals will help us understand how we went from a universe made almost entirely of just two chemical elements, to the incredible complexity we see today.</p> <p>鈥 探花直播very first stars are the holy grail of chemical evolution,鈥 said lead author Dr Francesco D鈥橢ugenio, from the Kavli Institute for Cosmology at Cambridge. 鈥淪ince they are made only of primordial elements, they behave very differently to modern stars. By studying how and when the first metals formed inside stars, we can set a time frame for the earliest steps on the path that led to the formation of life.鈥</p> <p>Carbon is a fundamental element in the evolution of the universe, since it can form into grains of dust that clump together, eventually forming into the first planetesimals and the earliest planets. Carbon is also key for the formation of life on Earth.</p> <p>鈥淓arlier research suggested that carbon started to form in large quantities relatively late 鈥 about one billion years after the Big Bang,鈥 said co-author Professor Roberto Maiolino, also from the Kavli Institute. 鈥淏ut we鈥檝e found that carbon formed much earlier 鈥 it might even be the oldest metal of all.鈥</p> <p> 探花直播team used the JWST to observe a very distant galaxy 鈥 one of the most distant galaxies yet observed 鈥 just 350 million years after the Big Bang, more than 13 billion years ago. This galaxy is compact and low mass 鈥 about 100,000 times less massive than the Milky Way.</p> <p>鈥淚t鈥檚 just an embryo of a galaxy when we observe it, but it could evolve into something quite big, about the size of the Milky Way,鈥 said D鈥橢ugenio. 鈥淏ut for such a young galaxy, it鈥檚 fairly massive.鈥</p> <p> 探花直播researchers used Webb鈥檚 Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) to break down the light coming from the young galaxy into a spectrum of colours. Different elements leave different chemical fingerprints in the galaxy鈥檚 spectrum, allowing the team to determine its chemical composition. Analysis of this spectrum showed a confident detection of carbon, and tentative detections of oxygen and neon, although further observations will be required to confirm the presence of these other elements.</p> <p>鈥淲e were surprised to see carbon so early in the universe, since it was thought that the earliest stars produced much more oxygen than carbon,鈥 said Maiolino. 鈥淲e had thought that carbon was enriched much later, through entirely different processes, but the fact that it appears so early tells us that the very first stars may have operated very differently.鈥澛</p> <p>According to some models, when the earliest stars exploded as supernovas, they may have released less energy than initially expected. In this case, carbon, which was in the stars鈥 outer shell and was less gravitationally bound than oxygen, could have escaped more easily and spread throughout the galaxy, while a large amount of oxygen fell back and collapsed into a black hole.</p> <p>鈥淭hese observations tell us that carbon can be enriched quickly in the early universe,鈥 said D鈥橢ugenio. 鈥淎nd because carbon is fundamental to life as we know it, it鈥檚 not necessarily true that life must have evolved much later in the universe. Perhaps life emerged much earlier 鈥 although if there鈥檚 life elsewhere in the universe, it might have evolved very differently than it did here on Earth.鈥</p> <p> 探花直播<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.09908">results</a> have been accepted for publication in the journal <em>Astronomy &amp; Astrophysics</em> and are based on data obtained within the <a href="https://jades-survey.github.io/">JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES)</a>.</p> <p> 探花直播research was supported in part by the European Research Council, the Royal Society, and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).</p> <p>聽</p> <p><em><strong>Reference:</strong><br /> Francesco D鈥橢ugenio et al. 鈥楯ADES: Carbon enrichment 350 Myr after the Big Bang.鈥 Astronomy &amp; Astrophysics (in press). DOI: <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.09908">10.48550/arXiv.2311.09908</a></em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-content-summary field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><p>Astronomers have detected carbon in a galaxy just 350 million years after the Big Bang, the earliest detection of any element in the universe other than hydrogen.</p> </p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image-credit field-type-link-field field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/01HZ083EXXCJNE64ERAH2ER2FM" target="_blank">NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Brant Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), Ben Johnson (CfA), Sandro Tacchella (Cambridge), Phill Cargile (CfA)</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image-desctiprion field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Deep field image from JWST</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-cc-attribute-text field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" rel="license"><img alt="Creative Commons License." src="/sites/www.cam.ac.uk/files/inner-images/cc-by-nc-sa-4-license.png" style="border-width: 0px; width: 88px; height: 31px;" /></a><br /> 探花直播text in this work is licensed under a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>. Images, including our videos, are Copyright 漏 探花直播 of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways 鈥 on our <a href="/">main website</a> under its <a href="/about-this-site/terms-and-conditions">Terms and conditions</a>, and on a <a href="/about-this-site/connect-with-us">range of channels including social media</a> that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-show-cc-text field-type-list-boolean field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Yes</div></div></div> Thu, 06 Jun 2024 14:52:26 +0000 sc604 246391 at Webb detects most distant black hole merger to date /research/news/webb-detects-most-distant-black-hole-merger-to-date <div class="field field-name-field-news-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img class="cam-scale-with-grid" src="/sites/default/files/styles/content-580x288/public/news/research/news/zs7-environment-nircam-image-cr.jpg?itok=oxIqgLKf" alt=" 探花直播environment of the galaxy system ZS7 from the JWST PRIMER programme as seen by Webb&#039;s NIRCam instrument." title=" 探花直播environment of the galaxy system ZS7 from the JWST PRIMER programme as seen by Webb&amp;#039;s NIRCam instrument, Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, J. Dunlop, H. 脺bler, R. Maiolino, et. al" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Astronomers have found supermassive black holes with masses of millions to billions times that of the Sun in most massive galaxies in the local Universe, including in our Milky Way galaxy. These black holes have likely had a major impact on the evolution of the galaxies they reside in. However, scientists still don鈥檛 fully understand how these objects grew to become so massive.</p> <p> 探花直播finding of gargantuan black holes already in place in the first billion years after the Big Bang indicates that such growth must have happened very rapidly, and very early. Now, the James Webb Space Telescope is shedding new light on the growth of black holes in the early Universe.</p> <p> 探花直播new Webb observations have provided evidence for an ongoing merger of two galaxies and their massive black holes when the Universe was just 740 million years old. 探花直播system is known as ZS7.</p> <p>Massive black holes that are actively accreting matter have distinctive spectrographic features that allow astronomers to identify them. For very distant galaxies, like those in this study, these signatures are inaccessible from the ground and can only be seen with Webb.</p> <p>鈥淲e found evidence for very dense gas with fast motions in the vicinity of the black hole, as well as hot and highly ionised gas illuminated by the energetic radiation typically produced by black holes in their accretion episodes,鈥 said lead author Dr Hannah 脺bler of Cambridge鈥檚 Cavendish Laboratory and Kavli Institute for Cosmology. 鈥淭hanks to the unprecedented sharpness of its imaging capabilities, Webb also allowed our team to spatially separate the two black holes.鈥</p> <p> 探花直播team found that one of the two black holes has a mass that is 50 million times the mass of the Sun. 鈥 探花直播mass of the other black hole is likely similar, although it is much harder to measure because this second black hole is buried in dense gas,鈥 said team member Professor Roberto Maiolino, also from the Kavli Institute.</p> <p>鈥淥ur findings suggest that merging is an important route through which black holes can rapidly grow, even at cosmic dawn,鈥 said 脺bler. 鈥淭ogether with other Webb findings of active, massive black holes in the distant Universe, our results also show that massive black holes have been shaping the evolution of galaxies from the very beginning.鈥</p> <p> 探花直播team notes that once the two black holes merge, they will also generate gravitational waves. Events like this will be detectable with the next generation of gravitational wave observatories, such as the upcoming Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission, which was recently approved by the European Space Agency and will be the first space-based observatory dedicated to studying gravitational waves.</p> <p>This discovery was from observations made as part of the Galaxy Assembly with NIRSpec Integral Field Spectroscopy programme. 探花直播team has recently been awarded a new Large Programme in Webb鈥檚 Cycle 3 of observations, to study in detail the relationship between massive black holes and their host galaxies in the first billion years. An important component of this programme will be to systematically search for and characterise black hole mergers. This effort will determine the rate at which black hole merging occurs at early cosmic epochs and will assess the role of merging in the early growth of black holes and the rate at which gravitational waves are produced from the dawn of time.</p> <p>These <a href="https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/531/1/355/7671512">results</a> have been published in the聽<em>Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society</em>.</p> <p><em><strong>Reference:</strong><br /> Hannah 脺bler et al. 鈥<a href="https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/531/1/355/7671512">GA-NIFS: JWST discovers an offset AGN 740 million years after the big bang</a>鈥 Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2024). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stae943</em></p> <p><em>Adapted from a <a href="https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Webb/Webb_detects_most_distant_black_hole_merger_to_date">press release</a> by the European Space Agency.</em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-content-summary field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><p>An international team of astronomers, led by the 探花直播 of Cambridge, has used the James Webb Space Telescope to find evidence for an ongoing merger of two galaxies and their massive black holes when the Universe was only 740 million years old. This marks the most distant detection of a black hole merger ever obtained and the first time that this phenomenon has been detected so early in the Universe.</p> </p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-content-quote field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Massive black holes have been shaping the evolution of galaxies from the very beginning</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-content-quote-name field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Hannah 脺bler</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image-credit field-type-link-field field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Webb/Webb_detects_most_distant_black_hole_merger_to_date" target="_blank">ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, J. Dunlop, H. 脺bler, R. Maiolino, et. al</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image-desctiprion field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> 探花直播environment of the galaxy system ZS7 from the JWST PRIMER programme as seen by Webb&#039;s NIRCam instrument</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-cc-attribute-text field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" rel="license"><img alt="Creative Commons License." src="/sites/www.cam.ac.uk/files/inner-images/cc-by-nc-sa-4-license.png" style="border-width: 0px; width: 88px; height: 31px;" /></a><br /> 探花直播text in this work is licensed under a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>. Images, including our videos, are Copyright 漏 探花直播 of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways 鈥 on our <a href="/">main website</a> under its <a href="/about-this-site/terms-and-conditions">Terms and conditions</a>, and on a <a href="/about-this-site/connect-with-us">range of channels including social media</a> that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-show-cc-text field-type-list-boolean field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Yes</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-license-type field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Licence type:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/imagecredit/attribution">Attribution</a></div></div></div> Thu, 16 May 2024 17:34:22 +0000 sc604 246021 at Astronomers spot oldest 鈥榙ead鈥 galaxy yet observed /research/news/astronomers-spot-oldest-dead-galaxy-yet-observed <div class="field field-name-field-news-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img class="cam-scale-with-grid" src="/sites/default/files/styles/content-580x288/public/news/research/news/8115-cutout-caption.jpg?itok=OhC5m1Kw" alt="False-colour JWST image of a small fraction of the GOODS South field, with JADES-GS-z7-01-QU highlighted" title="False-colour JWST image of a small fraction of the GOODS South field, with JADES-GS-z7-01-QU highlighted, Credit: JADES Collaboration" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Using the James Webb Space Telescope, an international team of astronomers led by the 探花直播 of Cambridge have spotted a 鈥榙ead鈥 galaxy when the universe was just 700 million years old, the oldest such galaxy ever observed.</p> <p>This galaxy appears to have lived fast and died young: star formation happened quickly and stopped almost as quickly, which is unexpected for so early in the universe鈥檚 evolution. However, it is unclear whether this galaxy鈥檚 鈥榪uenched鈥 state is temporary or permanent, and what caused it to stop forming new stars.</p> <p> 探花直播<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07227-0">results</a>, reported in the journal <em>Nature</em>, could be important to help astronomers understand how and why galaxies stop forming new stars, and whether the factors affecting star formation have changed over billions of years.</p> <p>鈥 探花直播first few hundred million years of the universe was a very active phase, with lots of gas clouds collapsing to form new stars,鈥 said Tobias Looser from the Kavli Institute for Cosmology, the paper鈥檚 first author. 鈥淕alaxies need a rich supply of gas to form new stars, and the early universe was like an all-you-can-eat buffet.鈥</p> <p>鈥淚t鈥檚 only later in the universe that we start to see galaxies stop forming stars, whether that鈥檚 due to a black hole or something else,鈥 said co-author Dr Francesco D鈥橢ugenio, also from the Kavli Institute for Cosmology.</p> <p>Astronomers believe that star formation can be slowed or stopped by different factors, all of which will starve a galaxy of the gas it needs to form new stars. Internal factors, such as a supermassive black hole or feedback from star formation, can push gas out of the galaxy, causing star formation to stop rapidly. Alternatively, gas can be consumed very quickly by star formation, without being promptly replenished by fresh gas from the surroundings of the galaxy, resulting in galaxy starvation.</p> <p>鈥淲e鈥檙e not sure if any of those scenarios can explain what we鈥檝e now seen with Webb,鈥 said co-author Professor Roberto Maiolino. 鈥淯ntil now, to understand the early universe, we鈥檝e used models based on the modern universe. But now that we can see so much further back in time, and observe that the star formation was quenched so rapidly in this galaxy, models based on the modern universe may need to be revisited.鈥</p> <p>Using data from JADES (JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey), the astronomers determined that this galaxy experienced a short and intense period of star formation over a period between 30 and 90 million years. But between 10 and 20 million years before the point in time where it was observed with Webb, star formation suddenly stopped.</p> <p>鈥淓verything seems to happen faster and more dramatically in the early universe, and that might include galaxies moving from a star-forming phase to dormant or quenched,鈥 said Looser.</p> <p>Astronomers have previously observed dead galaxies in the early universe, but this galaxy is the oldest yet 鈥 just 700 million years after the big bang, more than 13 billion years ago. This observation is one of the deepest yet made with Webb.</p> <p>In addition to the oldest, this galaxy is also relatively low mass 鈥 about the same as the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a dwarf galaxy near the Milky Way, although the SMC is still forming new stars. Other quenched galaxies in the early universe have been far more massive, but Webb鈥檚 improved sensitivity allows smaller and fainter galaxies to be observed and analysed.</p> <p> 探花直播astronomers say that although it appears dead at the time of observation, it鈥檚 possible that in the roughly 13 billion years since, this galaxy may have come back to life and started forming new stars again.</p> <p>鈥淲e鈥檙e looking for other galaxies like this one in the early universe, which will help us place some constraints on how and why galaxies stop forming new stars,鈥 said D鈥橢ugenio. 鈥淚t could be the case that galaxies in the early universe 鈥榙ie鈥 and then burst back to life 鈥 we鈥檒l need more observations to help us figure that out.鈥</p> <p> 探花直播research was supported in part by the European Research Council, the Royal Society, and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).</p> <p>聽</p> <p><em><strong>Reference:</strong><br /> Tobias J聽Looser et al. 鈥<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07227-0">A recently quenched galaxy 700 million years after the Big Bang</a>.鈥 Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07227-0</em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-content-summary field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><p>A galaxy that suddenly stopped forming new stars more than 13 billion years ago has been observed by astronomers.</p> </p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image-credit field-type-link-field field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/" target="_blank">JADES Collaboration</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image-desctiprion field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">False-colour JWST image of a small fraction of the GOODS South field, with JADES-GS-z7-01-QU highlighted</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-cc-attribute-text field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" rel="license"><img alt="Creative Commons License." src="/sites/www.cam.ac.uk/files/inner-images/cc-by-nc-sa-4-license.png" style="border-width: 0px; width: 88px; height: 31px;" /></a><br /> 探花直播text in this work is licensed under a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>. Images, including our videos, are Copyright 漏 探花直播 of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways 鈥 on our <a href="/">main website</a> under its <a href="/about-this-site/terms-and-conditions">Terms and conditions</a>, and on a <a href="/about-this-site/connect-with-us">range of channels including social media</a> that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-show-cc-text field-type-list-boolean field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Yes</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-license-type field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Licence type:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/imagecredit/public-domain">Public Domain</a></div></div></div> Wed, 06 Mar 2024 16:00:10 +0000 sc604 244911 at 探花直播big question - Cambridge 探花直播 team joins ALPHA hunt for dark matter /stories/cambridge-dark-matter-ALPHA-experiment <div class="field field-name-field-content-summary field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><p>A team of Cambridge scientists are working to help identify the mysterious and invisible material believed to make up 85 per cent of all the matter in the Universe.</p> </p></div></div></div> Wed, 07 Feb 2024 11:48:36 +0000 sb726 244371 at Galaxy mergers solve early Universe mystery /research/news/galaxy-mergers-solve-early-universe-mystery <div class="field field-name-field-news-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img class="cam-scale-with-grid" src="/sites/default/files/styles/content-580x288/public/news/research/news/zooming-in-on-three-neighbouring-galaxies-nircam-image-dp.jpg?itok=Uymxjnwx" alt="This image shows the galaxy EGSY8p7, a bright galaxy in the early Universe where light emission is seen from, among other things, excited hydrogen atoms 鈥 Lyman-伪 emission. " title="Zooming in on three neighbouring galaxies (NIRCam image), Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA &amp;amp; CSA, S. Finkelstein (UT Austin), M. Bagley (UT Austin), R. Larson (UT Austin), A. Pagan (STScI), C. Witten, M. " /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>This has solved one of the most puzzling mysteries in astronomy 鈥 why astronomers detect light from hydrogen atoms that should have been entirely blocked by the pristine gas that formed after the Big Bang.</p> <p>These new observations have found small, faint objects surrounding the galaxies that show the 鈥榠nexplicable鈥 hydrogen emission. In conjunction with state-of-the-art simulations of galaxies in the early Universe, the observations have shown that the chaotic merging of these neighbouring galaxies is the source of this hydrogen emission. 探花直播<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-023-02179-3">results</a> are reported in the journal <em>Nature Astronomy</em>.</p> <p>Light travels at a finite speed (300 000 km a second), which means that the further away a galaxy is, the longer it has taken the light from it to reach our Solar System. As a result, not only do observations of the most distant galaxies probe the far reaches of the Universe, but they also allow us to study the Universe as it was in the past.</p> <p>To study the early Universe, astronomers require exceptionally powerful telescopes that are capable of observing very distant 鈥 and therefore very faint 鈥 galaxies. One of <a href="https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Webb">Webb鈥檚</a> key capabilities is its ability to observe these galaxies, and probe the early history of the Universe.</p> <p> 探花直播earliest galaxies were sites of vigorous and active star formation, and were rich sources of a type of light emitted by hydrogen atoms called Lyman-伪 emission. However, during the epoch of reionisation, an immense amount of neutral hydrogen gas surrounded these stellar nurseries. Furthermore, the space between galaxies was filled by more of this neutral gas than is the case today. 探花直播gas can effectively absorb and scatter this kind of hydrogen emission, so astronomers have long predicted that the abundant Lyman-伪 emission released in the early Universe should not be observable today.</p> <p>This theory has not always stood up to scrutiny, however, as examples of early hydrogen emission have previously been observed by astronomers. This has presented a mystery: how is it that this hydrogen emission 鈥 which should have long since been absorbed or scattered 鈥 is being observed?</p> <p>鈥淥ne of the most puzzling issues that previous observations presented was the detection of light from hydrogen atoms in the very early Universe, which should have been entirely blocked by the pristine neutral gas that was formed after the Big Bang,鈥 said lead author Callum Witten from Cambridge鈥檚 Institute of Astronomy. 鈥淢any hypotheses have previously been suggested to explain the great escape of this 鈥榠nexplicable鈥 emission.鈥</p> <p> 探花直播team鈥檚 breakthrough came thanks to Webb鈥檚 combination of angular resolution and sensitivity. 探花直播observations with Webb鈥檚 NIRCam instrument were able to resolve smaller, fainter galaxies that surround the bright galaxies from which the 鈥榠nexplicable鈥 hydrogen emission had been detected. In other words, the surroundings of these galaxies appear to be a much busier place than we previously thought, filled with small, faint galaxies.</p> <p>These smaller galaxies were interacting and merging with one another, and Webb has revealed that galaxy mergers play an important role in explaining the mystery emission from the earliest galaxies.</p> <p>鈥淲here Hubble was seeing only a large galaxy, Webb sees a cluster of smaller interacting galaxies, and this revelation has had a huge impact on our understanding of the unexpected hydrogen emission from some of the first galaxies,鈥 said co-author Sergio Martin-Alvarez from Stanford 探花直播.</p> <p> 探花直播team then used computer simulations to explore the physical processes that might explain their results. They found that the rapid build-up of stellar mass through galaxy mergers both drove strong hydrogen emission and facilitated the escape of that radiation via channels cleared of the abundant neutral gas. So, the high merger rate of the previously unobserved smaller galaxies presented a compelling solution to the long-standing puzzle of the 鈥榠nexplicable鈥 early hydrogen emission.</p> <p> 探花直播team is planning follow-up observations with galaxies at various stages of merging, to continue to develop their understanding of how the hydrogen emission is ejected from these changing systems. Ultimately, this will enable them to improve our understanding of galaxy evolution.</p> <p><em><strong>Reference:</strong><br /> Callum Witten et al. 鈥<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-023-02179-3">Deciphering Lyman-伪 emission deep into the epoch of reionization</a>.鈥 Nature Astronomy (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-023-02179-3</em></p> <p><em>Adapted from an <a href="https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Webb/Webb_galaxy_mergers_solve_early_Universe_mystery">ESA press release</a>.</em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-content-summary field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><p>A team of astronomers, led by the 探花直播 of Cambridge, has used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to reveal, for the first time, what lies in the local environment of galaxies in the very early Universe.</p> </p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image-credit field-type-link-field field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Webb/Webb_galaxy_mergers_solve_early_Universe_mystery" target="_blank">ESA/Webb, NASA &amp; CSA, S. Finkelstein (UT Austin), M. Bagley (UT Austin), R. Larson (UT Austin), A. Pagan (STScI), C. Witten, M. </a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image-desctiprion field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Zooming in on three neighbouring galaxies (NIRCam image)</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-cc-attribute-text field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" rel="license"><img alt="Creative Commons License." src="/sites/www.cam.ac.uk/files/inner-images/cc-by-nc-sa-4-license.png" style="border-width: 0px; width: 88px; height: 31px;" /></a><br /> 探花直播text in this work is licensed under a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>. Images, including our videos, are Copyright 漏 探花直播 of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways 鈥 on our <a href="/">main website</a> under its <a href="/about-this-site/terms-and-conditions">Terms and conditions</a>, and on a <a href="/about-this-site/connect-with-us">range of channels including social media</a> that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-show-cc-text field-type-list-boolean field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Yes</div></div></div> Thu, 18 Jan 2024 16:28:39 +0000 sc604 244101 at Astronomers detect oldest black hole ever observed /research/news/astronomers-detect-oldest-black-hole-ever-observed <div class="field field-name-field-news-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img class="cam-scale-with-grid" src="/sites/default/files/styles/content-580x288/public/news/research/news/heic1604a.jpg?itok=F0K69FnN" alt=" 探花直播GN-z11 galaxy, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope" title=" 探花直播GN-z11 galaxy, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, Credit: NASA, ESA, and P. Oesch (Yale 探花直播)" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p> 探花直播international team, led by the 探花直播 of Cambridge, used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to detect the black hole, which dates from 400 million years after the big bang, more than 13 billion years ago. 探花直播<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07052-5">results</a>, which lead author Professor Roberto Maiolino says are 鈥渁 giant leap forward鈥, are reported in the journal <em>Nature</em>.</p> <p>That this surprisingly massive black hole 鈥 a few million times the mass of our Sun 鈥 even exists so early in the universe challenges our assumptions about how black holes form and grow. Astronomers believe that the supermassive black holes found at the centre of galaxies like the Milky Way grew to their current size over billions of years. But the size of this newly-discovered black hole suggests that they might form in other ways: they might be 鈥榖orn big鈥 or they can eat matter at a rate that鈥檚 five times higher than had been thought possible.</p> <p>According to standard models, supermassive black holes form from the remnants of dead stars, which collapse and may form a black hole about a hundred times the mass of the Sun. If it grew in an expected way, this newly-detected black hole would take about a billion years to grow to its observed size. However, the universe was not yet a billion years old when this black hole was detected.</p> <p>鈥淚t鈥檚 very early in the universe to see a black hole this massive, so we鈥檝e got to consider other ways they might form,鈥 said <a href="https://www.robertomaiolino.net/">Maiolino</a>, from Cambridge鈥檚 Cavendish Laboratory and Kavli Institute for Cosmology. 鈥淰ery early galaxies were extremely gas-rich, so they would have been like a buffet for black holes.鈥</p> <p>Like all black holes, this young black hole is devouring material from its host galaxy to fuel its growth. Yet, this ancient black hole is found to gobble matter much more vigorously than its siblings at later epochs.</p> <p> 探花直播young host galaxy, called GN-z11, glows from such an energetic black hole at its centre. Black holes cannot be directly observed, but instead they are detected by the tell-tale glow of a swirling accretion disc, which forms near the edges of a black hole. 探花直播gas in the accretion disc becomes extremely hot and starts to glow and radiate energy in the ultraviolet range. This strong glow is how astronomers are able to detect black holes.</p> <p>GN-z11 is a compact galaxy, about one hundred times smaller than the Milky Way, but the black hole is likely harming its development. When black holes consume too much gas, it pushes the gas away like an ultra-fast wind. This 鈥榳ind鈥 could stop the process of star formation, slowly killing the galaxy, but it will also kill the black hole itself, as it would also cut off the black hole鈥檚 source of 鈥榝ood鈥.</p> <p>Maiolino says that the gigantic leap forward provided by JWST makes this the most exciting time in his career. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a new era: the giant leap in sensitivity, especially in the infrared, is like upgrading from Galileo鈥檚 telescope to a modern telescope overnight,鈥 he said. 鈥淏efore Webb came online, I thought maybe the universe isn鈥檛 so interesting when you go beyond what we could see with the Hubble Space Telescope. But that hasn鈥檛 been the case at all: the universe has been quite generous in what it鈥檚 showing us, and this is just the beginning.鈥</p> <p>Maiolino says that the sensitivity of JWST means that even older black holes may be found in the coming months and years. Maiolino and his team are hoping to use future observations from JWST to try to find smaller 鈥榮eeds鈥 of black holes, which may help them untangle the different ways that black holes might form: whether they start out large or they grow fast.</p> <p> 探花直播research was supported in part by the European Research Council, the Royal Society, and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).</p> <p>聽</p> <p><em><strong>Reference:</strong><br /> Roberto Maiolino et al. 鈥<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07052-5">A small and vigorous black hole in the early Universe</a>.鈥 Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07052-5</em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-content-summary field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><p>Researchers have discovered the oldest black hole ever observed, dating from the dawn of the universe, and found that it is 鈥榚ating鈥 its host galaxy to death.</p> </p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-content-quote field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">It鈥檚 a new era: the giant leap in sensitivity, especially in the infrared, is like upgrading from Galileo鈥檚 telescope to a modern telescope overnight</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-content-quote-name field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Roberto Maiolino</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image-credit field-type-link-field field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="https://esahubble.org/images/heic1604a/" target="_blank">NASA, ESA, and P. Oesch (Yale 探花直播)</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image-desctiprion field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> 探花直播GN-z11 galaxy, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-cc-attribute-text field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" rel="license"><img alt="Creative Commons License." src="/sites/www.cam.ac.uk/files/inner-images/cc-by-nc-sa-4-license.png" style="border-width: 0px; width: 88px; height: 31px;" /></a><br /> 探花直播text in this work is licensed under a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>. Images, including our videos, are Copyright 漏 探花直播 of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways 鈥 on our <a href="/">main website</a> under its <a href="/about-this-site/terms-and-conditions">Terms and conditions</a>, and on a <a href="/about-this-site/connect-with-us">range of channels including social media</a> that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-show-cc-text field-type-list-boolean field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Yes</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-license-type field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Licence type:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/imagecredit/public-domain">Public Domain</a></div></div></div> Wed, 17 Jan 2024 15:59:26 +0000 sc604 244071 at