The James Webb Telescope Identified The Earliest 'Quenched' Galaxy Known To Man.
The James Webb Space Telescope discovered the first galaxy to cease star formation suddenly.The galaxy known as GS-9209 ceased star production more than 12.5 billion years ago, researchers report on arXiv.org on January 26. More than a billion years have passed since the Big Bang. Its existence gives new information on the evolution and demise of galaxies across cosmic time.
It is a surprising discovery, according to scientist Mauro Giavalisco of the Massachusetts University Amherst, who was not involved with the new research. "We want to know when conditions are favorable for quenched to become a galactic phenomenon." This research reveals that, at the very least, some galaxies perished in the early cosmos.
GS-9209 was identified for the first time in the 2000s. Depending on the light wavelengths that it produces, ground-based observatories have recognized it as a probably quenched galaxy in recent years. However, because the Earth's atmosphere blocks the infrared wavelengths that may prove the galaxy's distance and its celebrity days are over, it was difficult to determine with certainty.
As a result, astronomer Adam Carnall and his colleagues utilized the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST. The observatory is highly sensitive to infrared light and is located above the Earth's atmosphere. This, according to Carnall of Edinburgh University, is why JWST exists. JWST is also significantly more sensitive than previous telescopes, allowing it to detect fainter, more galaxy clusters. While the most excellent terrestrial telescopes might be able to observe GS-9209 in clarity after a period of observation, "JWST can observe this in a few hours."
Using JWST data, Carnall and colleagues determined that most of GS-9209's stars originated during a 200-million-year period, beginning approximately 600 million years after the Big Bang. During that cosmically brief instant, it produced approximately 40 billion solar masses worth of stars, or roughly the same number as the Milky Way.
Carnall thinks this rapid formation shows that GS-9209 erupted from a large gas and dust cloud collapsing and sparking stars simultaneously. "It's evident that most stars were created in this massive explosion."
Astronomers once believed that this method of galaxy development, known as monolithic implosion, was the norm. However, this theory has been supplanted by the theory that the gradual merging of numerous tiny sizes forms massive galaxies.
"It appears that, at least for such an object, a monolithic collapse occurred," Carnall says. “This is arguably the clearest confirmation thus that that kind of stellar evolution happens.” The abrupt cessation of star formation in the galaxy appears to have been caused by a constantly feeding black hole. Observations by the JWST found more infrared light emission linked with a rapidly rotating mass of energized hydrogen, indicative of an infalling black hole. The mass of the black hole looks to be a billion times that of the sun.
Carnall asserts that for the black hole to have reached this mass less than one billion years after the universe's formation, it must have fed much more rapidly in its earlier years. As it consumed, a brilliant circle of light-skinned gas and dust would have accumulated around it.
“If you have all of the radiation blasting out from the black hole, any material that one around is going to be warmed up to an unbelievable level, which stops it from collapsing into stars,” Carnall adds.
More studies with future observatories, like the proposed Extremely Powerful Telescope in Chile, may help us figure out more specifics regarding how the galaxy got snuffed out.
