Until now, astronomers could not see the surrounding compact objects of the Sparkler galaxy with Hubble Globular clusters are ancient collections of stars from a galaxy's infancy and contain clues about its earliest phases of formation and growth.įrom their initial analysis of 12 of these compact objects, the experts established that five of them are not only globular clusters but among the oldest ones known. They assumed that the sparkles could either be young clusters of actively-forming stars - born three billion years after the Big Bang at the peak of star formation - or old globular clusters. These dense groups of millions of stars may be relics that contain the first and oldest stars in the universe.ĭubbed 'the Sparkler galaxy', it got its name thanks to the compact objects appearing as small yellow-red dots surrounding it, referred to by researchers as 'sparkles.' Now, early analysis has zeroed in on one of these galaxies nine billion light-years away from Earth, and revealed that it is sparkling with some of the oldest-known star clusters, dating back to shortly after the Big Bang. "The team is excited about more discoveries to come when JWST turns its eye on the CANUCS galaxy clusters next month.One of the first spectacular images taken by NASA's new multi-million pound James Webb Space Telescope captured the universe's earliest galaxies. "Our study of the Sparkler highlights the tremendous power in combining the unique capabilities of JWST with the natural magnification afforded by gravitational lensing," says CANUCS team lead Chris Willott from the National Research Council's Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre. Moreover, gravitational lensing produces three separate images of the Sparkler, allowing astronomers to study the galaxy in greater detail. The Sparkler galaxy is special because it is magnified by a factor of 100 due to an effect called gravitational lensing-where the SMACS 0723 galaxy cluster in the foreground distorts what is behind it, much like a giant magnifying glass. This changed with JWST's increased resolution and sensitivity, unveiling the tiny dots surrounding the galaxy for the first time in Webb's First Deep Field image. Until now, astronomers could not see the surrounding compact objects of the Sparkler galaxy with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Globular clusters are ancient collections of stars from a galaxy's infancy and contain clues about its earliest phases of formation and growth.įrom their initial analysis of 12 of these compact objects, the researchers determined that five of them are not only globular clusters but among the oldest ones known. This galaxy got its name for the compact objects appearing as small yellow-red dots surrounding it, referred to by the researchers as "sparkles." The team posited that these sparkles could either be young clusters actively forming stars-born three billion years after the Big Bang at the peak of star formation-or old globular clusters. In the finely detailed Webb's First Deep Field image, the researchers zeroed in on what they've dubbed "the Sparkler galaxy," which is nine billion light years away. "This discovery in Webb's First Deep Field is already providing a detailed look at the earliest phase of star formation, confirming the incredible power of JWST." "JWST was built to find the first stars and the first galaxies and to help us understand the origins of complexity in the universe, such as the chemical elements and the building blocks of life," says Lamiya Mowla, Dunlap Fellow at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto and co-lead author of the study. The early analysis of Webb's First Deep Field image, which depicts some of the universe's earliest galaxies, is published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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