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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