James Webb Telescope Reveals Milky Way–Like Galaxies in Young Universe
January 9th, 2023Via: Phys.org:
New images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal for the first time galaxies with stellar bars—elongated features of stars stretching from the centers of galaxies into their outer disks—at a time when the universe was a mere 25% of its present age. The finding of so-called barred galaxies, similar to our Milky Way, this early in the universe will require astrophysicists to refine their theories of galaxy evolution.
Prior to JWST, images from the Hubble Space Telescope had never detected bars at such young epochs. In a Hubble image, one galaxy, EGS-23205, is little more than a disk-shaped smudge, but in the corresponding JWST image taken this past summer, it’s a beautiful spiral galaxy with a clear stellar bar.
