Since the launch of the space telescope James Webb (JWST) has made many discoveries that shed light into the early stages of development of the Universe.
Anadol’s correspondent, based on open sources, gathered together the most important discoveries of the Webb telescope made since its launch on December 25, 2021.
Over the three years of his work, JWST studied the solar system, the Galaxy of the Milky Way, the first stars and galaxies, formed immediately after the Big Bang, as well as exoplanets and their atmosphere in search of possible signs of life.
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Thanks to its location in space, JWST, free from the distorting effects of the Earth’s atmosphere, with the help of its chambers of visible light and the infrared range takes pictures of the deepest corners of the Universe and records the earliest stages of its existence.
Thanks to the incredible clarity of his cameras, JWST discovered the most distant galaxy “Jades-GS-Z14-0”, whose age is about 300 million years after the Big Bang.
It was found that over a relatively short period of time, the mass of this galaxy reached approximately 400 million solar masses.
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As the galaxies grow, stars explode inside them, forming dust. This dust absorbs blue light, giving the galaxies a red tint.
However, JWST found that this galaxy is bright, large and blue.
Scientists suggest that this may be due to the fact that in the early Universe very massive stars exploded under the influence of gravity and collapsed inside, or with the fact that as a result of much more powerful, supernova explosions were scattered into large distances.
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At the beginning of its existence in the universe, only hydrogen, helium and a small amount of lithium were.
Elements such as calcium and oxygen necessary for life in the form known to us were formed in the nuclei of the early stars.
The data obtained using the sensitive infrared spectrometer JWST (NIRSPEC) showed that the first galaxies had an unusual chemical composition: they had much more nitrogen, as well as helium, neon and carbon than in the Sun.
This discovery indicates that the knowledge of the chemical evolution of stars and galaxies is still incomplete.
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Thanks to the effect of gravitational lensing of massive galactic clusters, sensitive JWST cells can detect the most dim galaxies of the early Universe.
Scientists are trying to use the JWST to determine the periods when the galaxies are dim and stopped forming stars.