By Chris Skeldon 
NASA agency James Webb Space Telescope Came with the goods again. Pictures released by the space agency show some of the The oldest galaxies ever discovered. Galaxies feature so-called stellar bars — elongated groups of stars that extend from the centers of galaxies to their outer disks, as seen in the Milky Way. Two of the six date back to a time when the universe was only 3.4 billion years old, a quarter of its current age.
One of the galaxies, EGS-23305, was previously imaged by Hubble Space Telescope But the resolution wasn’t high enough for astronomers to determine its spiral shape and prominent star bar. These fine details are clearly visible in the high-resolution image Webb produces. The structure of the second galaxy, EGS-24268, can also be clearly seen.
Both barred galaxies are about 11 billion years old, which makes them older than any previously discovered galaxy, and was found in data collected by Webb. Cosmic evolution scientific research primary publication (CEERS).
Four other galaxies that have been blocked out for more than 8 billion years are found in the data.
The study co-author said, “I took one look at this data and said, ‘We’re excluding everything else!'” ” The teacher is shredded by Jojifrom the University of Texas at Austin.
“The nearly invisible bands in the Hubble data have just appeared in the JWST image, showing the enormous power of the JWST to see through underlying structure in galaxies.”
Starbars play a major role in the evolution of galaxies, transporting gas from the outer regions to the center. This gas is then rapidly converted into new stars 10 to 100 times faster than the rest of the galaxy. It could also help fuel the growth of supermassive black holes found at the centers of galaxies.
Finding barred galaxies so early in the universe raises questions about current theories of galaxy evolution. The team now plans to test different models of galaxy evolution to explain their new findings.
“This early detection of rods means that models of galactic evolution now have a new way through the rods to accelerate the production of new stars at early ages,” Jogee said.
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