(J. Spilker; S. Doyle; NASA; ESA; CSA https://bit.ly/3IXnCSc)
The James Webb Space Observatory (JWST) has detected polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the galaxy SPT0418-47, which existed when the universe was just an infant: 1.4 billion years old.
These are the oldest complex organic molecules known.
The phenomenon of gravitational lensing, predicted by General Relativity, allows astronomers to detect and study very distant and, as a result, dim galaxies.
It lies in the fact that if between a distant galaxy and an observer there is a massive object, then its gravity will bend the trajectories of photons from a distant galaxy, creating one or more distorted and enhanced image brightness.
THE DETECTION
Now a group from the Institute of Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University announced the detection of emission of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in the galaxy SPT0418-47
The image is created by gravitational lensing of the galaxy located between us and SPT0418-47, with redshift z=0.263.
Observations were made using the TEMPLATES program (Targeting Extremely Magnified Panchromatic Lensed Arcs and Their Extended Star formation) using the NIRSpec and MIRI instruments of the JWST.
The redshift value of SPT0418-47 is 4.22, which means that the radiation from it came to the Earth for more than 12 billion years.
The galaxy is young and belongs to dusty galaxies with a very high star formation rate, which are considered the progenitors of the massive early-type galaxies observed in the Local Universe.
The image of the galaxy, which is an Einstein ring (and it looks like Captain America’s shield), was enlarged by about 30–35 times due to lensing.
SPT0418-47 is the most distant example of a galaxy where PAHs have been detected, which are large organic molecules associated with interstellar dust in nebulae.
At the same time, the processes of star formation dominate in the sources of infrared radiation of the galaxy, and not the activity of the central supermassive black hole.
Sources:
- Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05998-6
- University of Texas: https://today.tamu.edu/2023/06/05/webb-telescope-detects-universes-most-distant-organic-molecules/
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