Discovering A Rare Red Spiral Galaxy Population From The Early Universe With The James Webb ...

Spiral galaxies are one of the most fascinating features of our universe. Among them, the spiral galaxies of the distant universe hold important information about their origin and evolution. However, understanding of these galaxies is limited because they are too distant to study in detail.

"Although these galaxies were previously discovered by observations with the NASA Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope, their spatial resolution and/or sensitivity limitations prevented us from studying their shapes and detailed properties," said researcher Waseda Yoshinobu Fudamoto. University. In Japan, studying the evolution of galaxies.

Now, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has taken things to the next level. In the first-ever image of the galaxy cluster SMACS J0723.3-7327, JWST was able to capture infrared images of a population of red spiral galaxies at unprecedented resolution, revealing their morphology in great detail!

In this regard, junior researcher Yoshinobu Fudamoto, Professor Akio K. Ino and Dr. Yuma Sugahara of Waseda University in Japan shared some surprising information about red spiral galaxies in a recent paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters .

Of the many red spiral galaxies found, the researchers focused on two bright red galaxies, RS13 and RS14. Using energy distribution (SED) analysis, the researchers measured the energy distribution of these galaxies at different wavelengths. SED analysis shows that these red spiral galaxies belong to the early universe known as the "Cosmic South" (8-10 billion years ago), which followed the Big Bang and the "Cosmic Dawn".

Interestingly, these are among the most distant spiral galaxies known to date.

Rare red spiral galaxies make up only 2 percent of the galaxies in the local universe. The discovery of red spiral galaxies in the early universe by JWST observations, which cover only a small part of space, suggests that such spiral galaxies were abundant in the early universe.

The researchers also found that one of the red spiral galaxies, RS14, is a "passive" (non-star-forming) spiral galaxy, contrary to the expectation that galaxies in the early universe are actively star-forming. The discovery of this passive spiral galaxy within JWST's limited field of view is particularly surprising, as it suggests that such passive spiral galaxies may have existed in abundance in the early universe.

Taken together, the results of this study will greatly improve our knowledge of red spiral galaxies and the Universe. "Our study shows for the first time that passive spiral galaxies may have been abundant in the early universe. Although this work is a pilot study of spiral galaxies in the early universe, confirmation and extension of this study will have a profound impact on our understanding of the formation and evolution of galactic morphology." Fudamoto said.

Additional information: Yoshinobu Fudamoto et al. Red spiral galaxies in the Cosmic South revealed in first JWST image Letters to The Astrophysical Journal (2022) DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ac982b

Citation : Rare red spiral galaxies in the early universe discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope (December 13, 2022). Retrieved December 13, 2022, from https://phys.org/news/2022-12-rare-red-spiral-galaxy. - People.html

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