The bang-up affair about having telescopes that can seem further and further into the past is being surprised by what we see there .
With the infraredJWST , we were hoping to learn more about the formation of galaxies , as well as clear up mysteries about how supermassive black jam became so expectant . But we have been thrown a few surprises as we reckon further back into the past .
One such closed book has been shake off up by the galaxy JADES - GS - z13 - 1 - LA , located around33 billion brightness - yearsfrom us . This galax has a redshift of 13 , which is a measure of how much a Galax urceolata ’s light has been extend by the expanding upon of the cosmos . Aredshiftof 13 have in mind that the luminosity from the galaxy has been move to us from about 330 million year after the Big Bang .
There are older beetleweed which we have observed , but this one turns out to be particularly unearthly . What micturate it so unusual are its spectra , which showed a big spindle in Lyman - alpha , or the hydrogen emission line . While stars are made of hydrogen – so this might not seem too weird – this is an emission line we were not bear to see this early in the universe of discourse .
" This is WILD . This is an ' discharge line ' from hydrogen gasolene , where an negatron drops down an Energy Department horizontal surface and gives off a photon of a specific ultraviolet vigor , " astronomer Kevin Hainline , author on the fresh newspaper publisher , which has not yet been compeer reviewed , explained on X(Twitter ) .
" This expelling is witness often in * nearby * galaxies . But as we go back in clock time , we find that the universe had a period where it was very unintelligible to ultraviolet radiation . The universe changed from opaque to translucent over a period of a billion or so years , as the first stars and quasars ' reionized ' the hydrogen gas everywhere . "
During the cosmic " disconsolate ages " the universe was filled with a thick " fog " of this H , which step by step cleared as stars and beetleweed constitute . By redshift 6 , around12.716 billion yearsin our past times , astronomers believe that this summons would have been complete . But before then , ultraviolet light should be more and more hard to see , as it would be obscured by more and more H deprive of its negatron .
" Seeing the line at REDSHIFT 13 is INSANE , everyone , " Hainlinecontinued . " It ’s so shocking that when we saw it in our JADES information it almost acquire the stress away from our verification of JADES - GS - z14 - 0 , because it was so unprecedented . How is this twinkle observe its way to us through the unintelligible existence ? "
alas , we do not have an explanation of why this wandflower ’s hydrogen emission line would be visible so too soon in the universe . astrophysicist have beenquick to level outthat Modified Newtonian Dynamics ( MOND ) predicts that reionizationwould take position earlierthan the standard model suggest . However , it is a piffling early to propose new physics , with the squad suggesting that an accreting supermassive black hole and associated ionization cone may offer an alternative explanation for the encompassing Lyman - alpha line .
For now , we will have to wait for further observations of the early universe for more clue to what is go on here .
The subject is brand to preprint serverarXiv .
