Record for the Farthest Galaxy just got Broken Again, now just 250 million years after the Big Bang

In the latest research submitted to MNRAS, a collaborative research group has used the first set of information from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) discovering a galaxy candidate, CEERS-93316, that created approximately 250 million years after the Bing Bang, which also set a new redshift record of z = 16.7. This discovery is exceptionally intriguing as it demonstrates the power of JWST, which only started sending back its first set of information a few weeks ago. CEERS stands for Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey, and was specifically created for imaging with JWST.

 

The study intended that CEERS-93316 can’t be a low-mass star or passable active galactic nucleus based on imaging data from NIR Cam (Near Infrared Camera), which is JWST’s primary imager. Since CEERS-93316 is could be only 250 million years old, one target for cosmologists is to know what’s happening in galaxies that young, and so soon after the Big Bang. 

 
“After the Big Bang the Universe move into a period known as the dark ages, a time before any stars had been born,” describe Dr. Bowler. “The study of this galaxy pushes observations back to the time when we imagine the first galaxies ever to exist were being formed.  Already we’ve discovered more galaxies in the very early Universe than computer simulations anticipated, so there is clearly a lot of open questions about how and when the first stars and galaxies created.” 

Redshift is part of what’s well known as the Doppler effect, which astronomers use to calculate the distances in the universe. An example to give a demonstration to the Doppler effect is the change in sound wave pitch as a loud object travel towards you then travels away from you, frequently by an ambulance or other first responder vehicle. The sound waves as the object travels in your direction is known as blueshift, while the opposite is called redshift. This latest study setting a new redshift record means scientists have measured the most distant object in the universe to date. 

 
This article was originally published by Universe Today