{"id":28659,"date":"2023-01-09T13:49:31","date_gmt":"2023-01-09T13:49:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2023\/01\/09\/webb-telescope-reveals-unexpected-milky-way-like-galaxies\/"},"modified":"2023-01-09T13:49:31","modified_gmt":"2023-01-09T13:49:31","slug":"webb-telescope-reveals-unexpected-milky-way-like-galaxies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2023\/01\/09\/webb-telescope-reveals-unexpected-milky-way-like-galaxies\/","title":{"rendered":"Webb Telescope Reveals Unexpected Milky Way-Like Galaxies"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The James Webb Space Telescope<\/a> has been operating for less than a year, but already it\u2019s causing astronomers to rethink some long-held beliefs about the early universe. A team from the University of Texas has used NASA\u2019s<\/a> new space telescope to take a peek at some extremely distant, and therefore ancient, galaxies. Webb\u2019s extraordinary clarity revealed these galaxies have structures known as bars, which astronomers didn\u2019t believe would have existed when the universe was a mere 25% of its current age.<\/p>\n

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Spiral galaxies are common throughout the universe (our Milky Way is one), and many of them are so-called barred galaxies. At least today they are. These structures appear to develop as spiral galaxies \u201cmature,\u201d drawing gas from the periphery in toward the center, where it fuels star formation at a vastly accelerated rate. Looking back in time, astronomers have spotted fewer bars in spiral galaxies, and that led to wide speculation that they had not formed in the early eons of existence.<\/p>\n

Now, we have not one but two examples of barred spiral galaxies in the early universe. Webb focused on a galaxy known as EGS-23205, which appears as it did 11 billion years ago. Hubble images of EGS-23205 just show a round blob, but Webb\u2019s massive mirror resolves the details of a barred spiral<\/a>. Above, you can see Hubble\u2019s view of EGS-23205 on the left and Webb\u2019s on the right. The team went on to spot EGS-24268, another ancient barred spiral about the same age as EGS-23205. The study, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, includes four more barred spirals, though all of those are a few billion years younger.<\/p>\n