A team of astronomers used the James Webb Telescope (JWST) to identify the most distant globular clusters ever discovered. These dense groups of millions of stars may be relics containing the first and oldest stars in the universe. The early analysis of Webb’s First Deep Field image, which depict
Thousands of galaxies flood this near-infrared, high-resolution image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScIever discovered. These dense groups of millions of stars may be relics containing the first and oldest stars in the universe.
“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.” From an initial analysis of 12 of these compact objects, the researcher team determined that five of them are not only globular clusters but among the oldest ones known.
Gravitational lensing is used by astronomers to study very distant and very faint galaxies. Credit: NASA, ESA & L. Calçadagalaxy is known to have about 150 globular clusters, but how and when exactly these dense clumps of stars formed is not well understood. Astronomers know that globular clusters can be extremely old, but it is incredibly challenging to measure their ages.
From left: Kartheik Iyer, Vince Estrada-Carpenter, Guillaume Desperez, Lamiya Mowla, Marcin Sawicki, Victoria Strait, Gabe Brammer and Kate Gould , Ghassan Sarrouh, Chris Willott, Bob Abraham, Gael Noirot, Yoshi Asada, Nick Martis, Credit: hoto courtesy of Lamiya Mowla and Kartheik Iyer The Canadian-made Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph instrument on the JWST provided independent confirmation that the objects are old globular clusters because the researchers did not observe oxygen emission lines – emissions with measurable spectra given off by young clusters that are actively forming stars. NIRISS also helped unravel the geometry of the triply lensed images of the Sparkler.
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