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    JWST tagged posts

    Webb Telescope Detects most Distant Active Supermassive Black Hole

    July 9, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    CEERS-NIRCam-crop2400x1600
    A zoomed-in view of images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope in near-infrared light for the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey. Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Steve Finkelstein (UT Austin), Micaela Bagley (UT Austin), Rebecca Larson (UT Austin).

    Researchers have discovered the most distant active supermassive black hole to date with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The galaxy, CEERS 1019, existed about 570 million years after the big bang, and its black hole is less massive than any other yet identified in the early universe.

    In addition to the black hole in CEERS 1019, the researchers identified two more black holes that are on the smaller side and existed 1 billion and 1.1 billion years after the big bang...

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    MIRI instrument on JWST detects H-alpha emission during the Epoch of Reionization for the first time

    June 14, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    MIRI instrument on JWST detects H-alpha emission during the Epoch of Reionization for the first time

    An international team of astronomers led by Pierluigi Rinaldi of the University of Groningen has detected for the first time H-alpha emission in individual galaxies during the so-called Epoch of Reionization, or cosmic dawn. To do so, they used the deepest images taken so far by the MIRI instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope. The result has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, and is currently published on the arXiv preprint server.

    Star-forming galaxies produce a large amount of UV photons, but during the Epoch of Reionization these photons are absorbed by the intergalactic medium. The best tracer to measure the level of star formation is the H-alpha emission line in the optical spectrum...

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    Webb Space Telescope Detects Universe’s Most Distant Complex Organic Molecules

    June 7, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Astronomers using the Webb telescope discovered evidence of complex organic molecules in a galaxy more than 12 billion light-years away. The galaxy lines up almost perfectly with a second galaxy only 3 billion light-years away from our perspective on Earth. In this false-color Webb image, the foreground galaxy is shown in blue, while the background galaxy is red. The organic molecules are highlighted in orange.
    Graphic courtesy J. Spilker / S. Doyle, NASA, ESA, CSA

    Researchers have detected complex organic molecules in a galaxy more than 12 billion light-years away from Earth — the most distant galaxy in which these molecules are now known to exist...

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    Astrophysicists confirm the Faintest Galaxy ever seen in the Early Universe

    June 3, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Guido Roberts-Borsani/UCLA); original images: NASA, ESA, CSA, Swinburne University of Technology, University of Pittsburgh, STScI

    An international research team led by UCLA astrophysicists has confirmed the existence of the faintest galaxy ever seen in the early universe. The galaxy, called JD1, is one of the most distant identified to date, and it is typical of the kinds of galaxies that burned through the fog of hydrogen atoms left over from the Big Bang, letting light shine through the universe and shaping it into what exists today.

    The discovery was made using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, and the findings are published in the journal Nature.

    The first billion years of the universe’s life were a crucial period in its evolution. After the Big Bang, approximately 13...

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