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Some of the disc galaxies examined by the JWST. | Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STSCI, Takafumi Tsukui (Anu)
Astronomers adopted the role of cosmic archaeologists, with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) over 100 hard disk galaxies being excavated up to 11 billion years ago. Just like artifacts that were excavated here on Earth, tell the history of mankind, these galaxies were able to tell the history of our galaxy, the Milky Way.
The aim of this investigation was to discover why galaxies such as the Milky Way consist of thick star slices with embedded thin star slices. Each of these hard drives has its own star population with its own movement.
The team behind this research wanted to know how and why this “dual-disk” structure forms and turn to the observations of 111 hard disk galaxies, which in our view are “edge-on”. This was the first time that astronomers examined thick and thin disc structures of galaxies that existed during the children’s stages of the cosmos, 2.8 billion years after the big bang.
“This unique measurement of the thickness of the windows with high red shift or sometimes in the early universe is a yardstick for theoretical studies that was only possible with the JWST,” said team leader Takafumi Tsukui of the Australian National University in a statement. “Usually the older, thick disc stars are weak and the young, thin disc stars shine the entire galaxy.
“But with the resolution of the JWST and the unique ability to see through dust and emphasize weak old stars, we can identify the two-disc structure of galaxies and measure their thickness separately.”
Tell the history of the Milky Way
The first step for the team was to separate the 111 galaxies in the sample into two categories: dual-tisked and single-lissed.
This seemed to show that galaxies first grow their thick star disc and formed on a later point.
The team believes that the timing of these data carrier training processes in the mass of the galaxy in question depends. In our approximately 14-billion-year universe, high mass-single-disc galaxies turned into two disc structures by forming a embedded thin pane about 8 billion years ago. Galaxies with a lower mass only seemed to be undergoing this transformation if they were about 4 billion years old.
“This is the first time that it was possible to solve thin star slices with a higher red shift. What is really new discovered when thin star disks appear,” said Emily Wisnioski, member of the studio team and researcher at the Australian National University in the explanation. “It was surprising to see thin star discs 8 billion years ago or even earlier.”
Some of the thin and thick disc galaxies that were examined by the JWST. | Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STSCI, Takafumi Tsukui (Anu)
The team then set out to determine what caused the transitions for these different types of galaxies. For this purpose, the researchers went beyond their sample of 111 galaxies to examine how gas dealt with these subjects.
They used gas movement data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA)-a collection of 66 antennas in Nordchile, which work together as a single telescope and other floor base.
This showed that turbulent gas triggers seizures of intensive star formation in galaxies in the early universe and born the thick star discs of these galaxies. When these stars form with thick loops, the gas is stabilized, which makes less turbulent and thinning. This leads to the formation of the embedded thin star disc.
According to the team, this process takes a different time in high mass galaxies and galaxies with a low mass, since the former converts gas more efficiently than the latter into the stars. This means that gas in galaxies with high mass is exhausted faster and it brings them to the point where their thin star slices can form faster.
An illustration of our home gallery, the Milky Way. | Credit: Shutterstock
This also links to our own galaxy. The timing of these transitions corresponded to the time when the Milky Way has grown from theory to its own thin disc of stars.
Overall, the research of the team shows the ability of the JWST to return to the time and find galaxies that correspond to the development of our own galaxy, and enables these galaxies to act as deputies that tell the history of the Milky Way.
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The next step for this research includes the team that adds further data to determine whether the relationships you have observed are still standing.
“We want to research a lot more,” said Tsukui. “We would like to add the type of information that people normally get for galaxies nearby, such as star movement, age and metallicity [the abundance of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium].
“In this way we can bridge the knowledge from galaxies near and far and refine our understanding of the hard disk formation.”
The results of the team appear in the July edition of the Journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
