Impossible! The Faintest Galaxy Ever Discovered by James Webb Telescope

foreign to witness the birth of the first stars and galaxies in the universe imagine seeing how they lit up the dark and transformed The Cosmic Landscape imagine discovering their secrets and Mysteries that have been hidden for billions of years sounds impossible right well not anymore thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope we can now see things that were never seen before things that challenge our understanding of the universe and its history things like jd1 jd1 is a new Galaxy that has just been discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope the most powerful and advanced telescope ever built it is a cosmic wonder that defies all expectations and theories it is one of the faintest and smallest galaxies ever found and yet it is still forming Stars despite its low metallicity in old age it is also one of the relics of the Epic of ryanization a period in the early Universe when the first stars and galaxies ionized the neutral hydrogen gas how did jd-1 form and survive in such a harsh environment how does it compare with other galaxies in the universe and what does it tell us about the Epic of reunization in the early Universe these are some of the questions that we are going to answer in this video we will also explore how jwst detected jd-1 using gravitational lensing and what this means for our ability to find more galaxies like it in this video I will take you on a cosmic journey to explore the amazing discovery of jd-1 so buckle up and get ready for an adventure in a new episode of rewriting the cosmic history the discovery of jd-1 was made by a team of astronomers from Japan and Taiwan who used data from Webb's near infrared camera or near cam instrument which is one of the four instruments on board James Webb that can observe infrared light with high resolution and sensitivity it can also perform multi-object spectroscopy which means it can measure the Spectra or colors of multiple objects at once the team used nercam to observe three Galaxy clusters named Abel 2744 Max j0416 and Max j0717 these clusters are located about 3.5 billion light years away from us and have masses ranging from 100 trillion to 400 trillion times that of our sun they are also part of a larger program called relics or reanization lensing cluster survey which aims to use gravitational lensing to find the most distant and faintest galaxies in the universe gravitational lensing is a phenomenon that occurs when a massive object such as a Galaxy cluster bends the space-time around it and acts like a giant lens that amplifies the light from objects behind it by using this natural telescope James Webb can see galaxies that are otherwise too faint to be seen however the lensing also distorts the shapes and positions of the galaxies depending on how close they are to the regions where the lensing is stronger or weaker so the team searched for faint galaxies near these regions where they expected to find the most magnified objects they found about 200 candidates but only one of them stood out as a very promising Ultra faint dwarf Galaxy this galaxy was named jd-1 after the initials of the first author of the paper Jia Sheng Hwang and the number one jd-1 was found near one of these regions in Max j0416 which is one of the most massive and lensing clusters in the sky the the cluster magnified jd1 by a factor of about 50 making it visible to James Webb without this magnification jd1 would be too faint to be detected even by Webb to confirm that jd-1 is a real Galaxy and not a spurious artifact by using nercam's multi-object spectroscopy mode the team measured the spectrum of jd-1 and found that it has a prominent emission line of hydrogen Alpha which is a signature of star formation they also measured the redshift of jd1 which is a measure of how much its light has been stretched by the expansion of the universe they found that jd-1 has a redshift of 6.03 which means it is located about 3.5 billion light years away from us by using these measurements the team estimated the physical properties of jd-1 such as its mass size brightness and star formation rate they also compared jd-1 with other known Ultra faint dwarf galaxies and found that it is one of the faintest and smallest ones ever discovered jd1 is an ultra faint dwarf Galaxy with active star formation this means that it is still making new stars out of its gas supply unlike most other Ultra faint dwarf galaxies that have stopped forming Stars long ago this makes jd1 very interesting and valuable for studying how galaxies evolve over time the team estimated that jd-1 has a mass of only 10 000 times that of our sun which is about 100 times smaller than our Milky Way galaxy it is also very dim with an absolute magnitude of -7.6 which means it is about 10 million times fainter than our sun it has a size of only 300 light years across which is about 30 times smaller than our Milky Way galaxy jd-1 is also very young with an age of only about 800 million years this means that it formed when the universe was only about 2 billion years old during the Epic of rionization the Epic of rionization was a period in the early Universe when the first stars in galaxies formed and ionized the neutral hydrogen gas that filled the space moreover jd-1 is not only young and actively forming stars but unlike normal dwarf galaxies jd-1 has a very low metallicity which means that it has very few elements heavier than hydrogen and helium in its gas and stars metals are produced by nuclear fusion in stars and Supernova explosions and they enrich the gas from which new stars form therefore metallicity is a measure of how chemically evolved a galaxy is the team estimated that jd-1 has a metallicity of only about 0.5 percent that of our sun which means that it has very few Metals in its gas and Stars this low metallicity suggests that jd-1 is a very primitive Galaxy that has not undergone much star formation or chemical enrichment in its history additionally it suggests that jd-1 may have originated from primordial gas clouds free of metal contamination from earlier star Generations jd-1 may be one of the relics of the early Universe when galaxies were first forming out of primordial gas clouds it may also be one of the sources of ionizing radiation that contributed to reanizing the universe jd-1 is not only an interesting Galaxy in itself but also a valuable probe for cosmology the study of the origin and evolution of the universe by finding and studying jd-1 and other Ultra faint dwarf galaxies astronomers can learn more about the Epic of reunization and the nature of dark matter the Epic of reunization was a crucial phase in the history of the universe when the first stars and galaxies formed and ionized the neutral hydrogen gas that filled the space this Epoch lasted from about 400 million to 1 billion years after the big bang and it is important for understanding How the Universe evolved and became what it is today however studying this Epoch is very challenging because the galaxies that existed then were very small dim and far away they are so faint that even James Webb can barely detect them but thanks to gravitational lensing James Webb can boost its vision and magnify the light from these galaxies by finding and studying jd-1 and other Ultra faint dwarf galaxies astronomers can estimate how many such galaxies existed in the early universe and how much ionizing radiation they produced this can help constrain the timing and duration of reunization and its impact on the structure formation in the universe these Ultra faint dwarf galaxies are also important for testing the nature of Dark Matter a mysterious substance that makes up most of the mass in the universe but does not emit or interact with light dark matter is thought to play a key role in shaping the formation and evolution of galaxies especially on small scales however there are different models and theories of dark matter that make different predictions about how many small dark matter Halos should exist in the universe and how they should behave by finding more Ultra faint dwarf galaxies astronomers can compare their properties with those predicted by different Dark Matter models and test their validity for example some models of Dark Matter predict that there should be many more small dark matter Halos than observed which is known as the missing satellites problem other models predict that small dark matter Halos should be more concentrated than observed which is known as the too big to fail problem by measuring the mass size and velocity dispersion of jd-1 and other Ultra faint dwarf galaxies astronomers can test whether these problems exist or not jd1 is therefore a remarkable discovery that opens new windows into the early universe and the nature of dark matter it is one of the faintest and smallest galaxies ever found and it is still forming Stars despite its low metallicity in old age it is also one of the relics of the Epic of reunization and one of the probes of Dark Matter on small scales we have reached the end of this episode of rewriting the cosmic history where we explored the amazing discovery of jd1 we hope you enjoyed this video and learned something new if you did please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel for more videos like this and don't forget to hit the Bell icon to get notified when we upload new episodes thank you for watching and see you next time

Channel: NASASpaceNews

Views: 18,906

Keywords: JD1, James Webb Space Telescope, Faintest Galaxy, Cosmic Discovery, Universe Origins, Ancient Galaxies, Galactic Secrets, Astrobiology, Reionization Epoch, Gravitational Lensing, Unveiling Mysteries, Space Exploration, Cosmic Journey, Incredible Astronomy, Mind-Blowing Revelation, Cosmic Wonders, Astrochemistry, Galactic Evolution, Dark Matter Probes, Cosmological Significance, Space Telescope, Astronomical Breakthrough, Galactic Exploration, Fascinating Universe

Id: jbBNd_aWMkc

Length: 10min 22sec (622 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 05 2023