‘Teenage’ galaxies from the early universe contain mysterious heavy elements, James Webb telescope reveals
The deeper we look into space, the further back in time we see. Light emanating from some of the younger galaxies in our universe has to travel for billions of years to reach us, getting picked up by our instruments, rich with information from the cosmic dawn. And not only can this light tell us where we have come from, but where we might be headed.
To understand the evolution of several of these early universe, “teenage” galaxies, a Northwestern University-led team of astrophysicists have inspected data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which gazed back to realms that formed just two-to-three billions years after the Big Bang.
The observations have thrown up some intriguing surprises.
Specifically, the team analyzed results from the Chemical Evolution Constrained using Ionized Lines in Interstellar Aurorae (CECILIA) Survey to find that, not only do these galaxies appear hotter than expected, but they also seem to host heavy elements, like nickel. [Continue reading…]