It has stunned the world with the deepest image of space ever taken, and now it has another feather in its cap, the possibility of finding the most distant galaxy ever observed.
Early data is coming in from a survey called the Grism Lens-Amplified Survey from Space, or GLAS, which uses both the NIRCam camera and the NIRISS and NIR Spec spectrographs to observe a galaxy cluster called Abell 2744. The goal of the survey is to look back at a time when the universe was just beginning to form. The mass of Abell 2744 acts as a magnifying glass for the faint galaxies behind it.
Two galaxies have very high redshifts, which means that their light is shifted far into theIR range, which indicates they are far away. According to the results, we can see the two galaxies as they were 130,000 years ago. The most distant starlight anyone has ever seen is being looked at by the authors.
The results need to be confirmed with more readings such as the NIRSpec results. The paper has not yet been peer reviewed, so the results should be considered speculative at this point. The work shows the kind of results that will be possible with James.
One of the earliest stages of the universe could be where the older of the two galaxies is located. If the results are confirmed, it will be the farthest galaxy ever seen. Due to the expansion of the universe, the distance between us is now 33 billion light years.
Pre-print archive arXiv contains the research.
There is a recommended video.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
