All articles tagged with #galaxy evolution
To mark its fourth year of science operations, NASA, ESA, and CSA released new JWST images of Centaurus A (NGC 5128), showcasing the galaxy's dust structures and star-forming regions in unprecedented infrared detail thanks to the telescope's NIRCam and MIRI cameras, enabling galactic archaeology and a clearer view of Centaurus A's turbulent past and evolution.
Using the COSMOS-Web program, the James Webb Space Telescope has produced the largest-ever 3D map of the universe, charting about 164,000 galaxies over a 255-hour survey to reveal the cosmic web’s skeleton from the present back to when the universe was under 1 billion years old. The map shows dense regions fostering early galaxy growth and, later, environmental quenching in massive galaxies—likely driven by massive dark matter halos and feedback from supermassive black holes—providing new insight into how the large-scale structure of the cosmos evolved. The COSMOS-Web galaxy catalog is publicly available for researchers.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has resolved 16.5 million stars in Messier 82 (the Cigar Galaxy) in a deep infrared image, revealing a starburst forming stars about ten times faster than the Milky Way. The count represents Webb’s resolution limit in this image, not the galaxy’s total stellar population, as many stars are too faint or buried in dust. The burst is expected to last only a few hundred million years and is thought to be triggered by a past galactic encounter, with outflows and dust structures visible. The study showcases how Webb and Hubble data together can help reconstruct M82’s history and the mechanics of extreme star formation in nearby galaxies.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope spent 65 hours capturing a 223-megapixel, near-infrared image of Messier 82 (the Cigar Galaxy), resolving about 16.5 million stars and revealing a distended disk; when combined with Hubble data, the image helps scientists study M82's unusually rapid star formation (around 10 times faster than the Milky Way) and its evolutionary history.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope revealed about 16.5 million individual stars in edge-on Messier 82 (the Cigar Galaxy) by peering through dust, mapping its distended disk and a rapid, merger-driven starburst. The Webb data, complemented by Hubble observations, help researchers probe how star formation and outflows have shaped M82 over the past few hundred million years.
New James Webb Space Telescope observations of the merging galaxy CRISTAL-02, about 1 billion years after the Big Bang, show an enormous gas outflow (~1.5 billion solar masses) and a star-formation rate of ~260 solar masses per year, while gas is being expelled at >500 solar masses per year. The winds, driven by rapid star formation and supernovae (and possibly aided by a black hole), can energize and disperse molecular gas, quenching star formation. If the outflow continues, the galaxy could exhaust its fuel in under 100 million years, offering a window into a widespread mechanism that could explain the abundance of quiescent galaxies in the early universe and inform cosmological simulations—and it hints at similar futures for galaxies like the Milky Way when they collide with Andromeda.
The James Webb Space Telescope observed a powerful wind expelling gas from a distant early galaxy, which could suppress star formation and help explain why some early galaxies shone briefly before fading, shedding light on how galaxies evolve in the universe’s infancy.
Astronomers report a distant quasar named J2318 powered by a 1.7-billion-solar-mass black hole emitting radiation-driven winds in ultraviolet light at speeds up to 0.3 times the speed of light—the fastest ultraviolet outflow observed. These extreme winds carry so much energy that they could push away gas and dust from the host galaxy, potentially quenching star formation and influencing galaxy evolution. The findings, derived from SDSS observations, were published in The Astrophysical Journal.
Researchers using JWST data from the COSMOS-Web program produced the most detailed map of the cosmic web to date, tracing galaxies and filamentary structures back to about 1 billion years after the Big Bang, revealing finer details than previous Hubble maps and releasing the 164,000-galaxy catalog and an interactive cosmic-evolution visualization to the public.
The James Webb Space Telescope identified the most distant dormant black hole in a galaxy more than 10 billion light-years away (MRG-M0138), with a mass of about six billion solar masses. Because the black hole is not accreting, it’s invisible across wavelengths; researchers measured its mass by tracking the motions of stars around it, aided by gravitational lensing that magnified the system. The finding helps illuminate black hole growth in the early universe and how such black holes influence galaxy evolution, with future surveys like Euclid and the Roman Space Telescope expected to find more of these objects.
JWST spotted a long, fully formed stellar bar in GN20, a massive galaxy from the early universe, contradicting three predictions that bars shouldn’t exist in young, gas-rich disks. Independent dust maps corroborate the structure, suggesting turbulence-driven gas dynamics can stabilize bars and drive central starbursts and black hole growth. The finding implies early galaxies matured faster than models predicted and will prompt revisions to simulations, with follow-up kinematic studies planned (e.g., ALMA).
NASA/ESA's Hubble image captures Messier 88 (NGC 4501), an active spiral about 63 million light-years away in the Virgo Cluster, with a supermassive black hole at its center and bright star-forming regions along its arms. As M88 journeys toward the cluster’s core—potentially near M87 in 200–300 million years—it will experience ram pressure stripping by the intracluster medium, which will remove gas, truncate its outer disk, and likely reduce its star-forming fuel, altering its evolution. The observation, part of program 18103 using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, aims to understand how crowded environments affect spiral galaxies.
Using JWST’s COSMOS-Web survey, astronomers mapped about 164,000 galaxies over a 255‑hour program to produce the largest, most detailed view of the cosmic web. The map shows how dense regions foster early galaxy growth and eventually quench star formation, revealing the large-scale structure of the universe up to redshift z~7 and refining our understanding of cosmic evolution since the universe’s infancy.
Astronomers find a quasar ULAS J1120+0641 with an ultra-massive black hole whose gravity may disrupt its host galaxy, implying black holes could outpace galaxy growth in the early universe and challenging standard co-evolution theories.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured a striking image of the barred spiral galaxy IC 486, about 380 million light-years away, revealing an active galactic nucleus powered by a supermassive black hole over 100 million solar masses. The AGN outshines much of the galaxy and its accretion disk heats surrounding gas, offering a window into how galaxies grow and evolve and how bars funnel gas to fuel star formation and nuclear activity.