Researchers at the University of Texas have for the first time discovered barred galaxies similar to the Milky Way that existed when the universe was only a quarter of its current age.
According to UT professor of astronomy Shardha Jogi, the band is an elongated structure of stars that starts at the center of the galaxy and extends to its outer disk.
According to Jogi, the bars take gas from the outer part of the galaxy and send it to the center, just like raw materials go from the harbor to the factory in the city.
The bar “solves the supply chain problem by taking gas from the outer disk of the galaxy, delivering it to the center of the galaxy, and then the center of the galaxy is where the gas turns into stars at a very, very high rate.” quickly,” Jogi said.
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The discovery of barred galaxies can be attributed to the James Webb Space Telescope, which produces more powerful, higher-resolution images of the cosmos than its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, Jogi said.
“Webb works in the far infrared, where he can look through the dust in the galaxy, see the main distribution of stars, and see the bands,” Jogi said.
The reason this discovery of barred galaxies at such an early stage in the universe is significant is because previously scientists could trace their existence back to 10 billion years ago. The discovery will give a better idea of how the universe has evolved over time, said UT senior astronomer Eden Wise, who helped with the discovery.
Michaela Bagley, PhD researcher in astronomy and co-author of the Cosmic Evolution Study at UT, supported the study by downscaling images provided by the Webb Telescope for the entire research team. Jogi and graduate student Kei Go visually identified barred galaxies in the images and performed various analyses.
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“I used the well-known ellipse fitting technique,” Guo said. “We are very happy that we did find some (bars) because there are many models and many theories that actually give different results” about barred galaxies.
Stars like the sun are important to human life, said Eva Chen, a senior physicist, mathematician and astronomer at UT who helped with the discovery. Since barred galaxies are important for the rapid formation of new stars, a better understanding of barred galaxies will help us understand new ways of forming stars.
The next step after this discovery is to study the proportions of the bars, which will help researchers understand how much of the galaxies at different stages of the development of the Universe is a bar. This will help scientists better understand how the universe evolved, Guo said.
This story was originally published by The Daily Texan, an independent student-run newspaper at the University of Texas.
