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James Webb telescope reveals 'Sleeping Beauty' galaxies in the early universe — snoozing where they weren't supposed to exist

James Webb telescope reveals 'Sleeping Beauty' galaxies in the early universe — snoozing where they weren't supposed to exist

Yahoo20-07-2025
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Astronomers have discovered over a dozen "dormant" galaxies that paused their star formation within the first billion years after the Big Bang.
The discovery, made with data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), illuminates a fascinating phase in the lives of early galaxies and could provide more clues about how galaxies evolve.
There are several reasons why galaxies may stop forming new stars. One is the presence of supermassive black holes at their centers. These behemoths emit intense radiation that heats and depletes cold gas, the most important ingredient for star formation. Additionally, larger neighboring galaxies can strip away this cold gas or heat it, leading to a halt in star formation. As a result, these galaxies may remain dormant indefinitely, or become "quenched."
Another reason galaxies become inactive is stellar feedback. That's when the gas in the galaxy gets warmed and expelled due to stellar processes like supernovas, intense stellar winds, or the pressure associated with starlight. The galaxy thus goes through a temporary "quiet" period.
"This is usually a temporary phase, which usually lasts about 25 million years," Alba Covelo Paz, a doctoral student at the University of Geneva and the lead author of a new study describing the findings, told Live Science in an email. Over millions of years, the gas that was pushed out falls back in, and the warm gas cools again. Once there is enough cold gas again, the galaxy can start forming new stars.
While the dormant phase is commonly observed in nearby galaxies, astronomers have found only four dormant galaxies in the first billion years of the universe. Of those, three had masses below a billion solar masses and one had a mass above 10 billion solar masses. The limited observations and scattered properties of dormant galaxies were not sufficient to get a clear picture of early star formation.
Related: 'Previously unimaginable': James Webb telescope breaks its own record again, discovering farthest known galaxy in the universe
But using JWST's sensitive spectroscopic data, an international team of astronomers discovered 14 dormant galaxies with a wide range of masses in the early universe, showing that dormant galaxies are not limited to low or very high mass ranges.
The findings were uploaded to the preprint database arXiv on June 27 and have not been peer-reviewed yet.
Taking a breather
Researchers didn't expect to see dormant galaxies in the early universe. Because these galaxies are young, they should be vigorously forming many new stars, astronomers thought. But in a 2024 paper, researchers described the first discovery of a dormant galaxy in the early universe.
"The first discovery of a dormant galaxy in the early universe was such a shock because that galaxy had been observed before with Hubble, but we could not know it was dormant until JWST," Paz said.
That's because, unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, JWST's NIRSpec instrument can both see light from these galaxies that has been redshifted to near-infrared wavelengths, and also provide spectroscopic details about it.
Astronomers were curious to know why early galaxies stopped forming stars and whether this was common among a wide range of stellar masses. One hypothesis was that the galaxies had bursts of star formation and then quiet periods, before starting again. Paz and her team looked for the galaxies that were in between bursts of star formation. They used publicly available galaxy data in the DAWN JWST Archive.
They examined the light of about 1,600 galaxies, looking for signs of new stars not forming. They also focused on clear signatures of middle-aged or old stars in the galaxies' light. The team found 14 galaxies, ranging from about 40 million to 30 billion solar masses, that had paused star formation.
"We now found 14 sources supporting this burstiness process, and we found that all of them have halted star formation between 10 [million] and 25 million years before we observed them," Paz explained. That means these 14 galaxies were found to follow a stop-and-go fashion of star formation rather than continuously forming stars, and they have been quiet for at least 10 million to 25 million years.
This relatively short snooze hints that stellar feedback, such as supernovas or stellar winds, caused them to go quiet and that they may eventually restart their stellar factories, Paz said.
However, there is still uncertainty, she added. "We cannot confirm it for sure because we don't know how long they will remain dormant, and if they happen to stay dormant for another 50 million years, this would mean the cause of their quenching is different," Paz explained.
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This scenario would suggest that the galaxies are dead. Nevertheless, the current properties of these galaxies support a cycle of fits and starts.
Because dormant galaxies are so rare, much about them remains mysterious. However, astronomers hope future observations will help shed light on these snoozing star factories. An upcoming JWST program called "Sleeping Beauties" will be dedicated to discovering dormant galaxies in the early universe, Paz said. This program will allow astronomers to estimate how long a galaxy remains in this quiet phase and help them understand the bursty star formation process.
"There are still many unknowns for us, but we are one step closer to unravelling this process," Paz said.
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Just Seeing A (Fake) Sick Person Can Activate Your Immune System

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'NASA is under attack.' Space agency employees and lawmakers protest mass layoffs, science cuts amid budget turmoil
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When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. WASHINGTON — NASA scientists and engineers are demanding Congress help turn down the heat on an agency whose current leadership, they say, is burning down American dominance in space and science. A group of NASA employees, contractors, their families, friends and other supporters gathered across from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum on July 20 — the anniversary of humanity's historic first landing on the moon. Nearly 100 showed up Sunday to protest deep budget cuts and mass layoffs within the nation's space agency, and to urge Congress to take expedient action to reverse or minimize further losses. "We are here because NASA is under attack," said one of the protest's organizers, NASA contract employee Marshall Finch. "And we are its defense." Just days earlier, lawmakers from the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Science, Space, and Technology published a scathing letter to interim NASA Administrator Sean Duffy, accusing agency leadership of acting outside its legal authority by enacting extensive cuts before a final budget is passed. Budget cuts Protesters, including the ad hoc organizing group called NASA Needs Help, gathered to sound the alarm over what they view as broad, preemptive overcompliance with President Donald Trump's 2026 budget proposal, which slashes NASA's science portfolio by roughly 50% — a cut that would cancel more than 40 current and upcoming space missions. 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"It now appears that the agency intends to implement funding cuts that were never enacted by Congress in order to 'align' the agency's present-day budget with the Trump Administration's slash-and-burn proposed budget for the next fiscal year, with seemingly no concern for the devastation that will be caused by mass layoffs, widespread program terminations and the possible closure of critical centers and facilities," the letter stated. "A presidential budget request is just that: a request to Congress," Lofgren and Foushee wrote in the letter. "The notion that any executive branch agency would unilaterally take steps to implement a budget proposal before its budget is enacted by Congress is therefore offensive to our constitutional system. It would be illegal." NASA is opting to keep the political back-and-forth between the agency and lawmakers, for the time being. 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Protesters at the July 20 demonstration, which coincided with the 54th anniversary of NASA's Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, echoed Lofgren and Foushee's concern. They worried that by the time Congress acts, the damage to NASA may be irreversible. Congress is pushing back on the proposed cuts, with the Senate Appropriations Committee advancing a measure to fund NASA at a level comparable to fiscal year 2025, and there is apparent bipartisan support for maintaining the space agency's science programs. But many who showed up at the demonstration worried that lawmakers' actions may come too late. "Congress says they want to save NASA," Finch said. "Let's see them do it now … Let's see them fight." Growing fear Meanwhile, protesters described a rising sense of fear and uncertainty within NASA. Many said they feel demoralized by mounting pressure to leave under the DRP and the abrupt departures of their colleagues who already have. As they watch many of their coworkers resign, protesters worry that critical institutional knowledge is leaving with them. Julie, who, like other protesters interviewed by asked that her full name be omitted, also helped organize the demonstration. She thinks these personnel losses could have deeper implications, and used NASA's Office of the Chief Knowledge Officer as an example. "That was set up after [the] Columbia and Challenger [space shuttle disasters] to make sure that we were passing any lessons learned on to the entire community," Julie explained. "Watching all of this brain drain leave without any kind of backup plan at all, any kind of structure, has been just the most depressing thing. I can kind of see another Challenger, another Columbia happening down the road as a result of this, and it will ultimately be blamed back on us," she told "That knowledge isn't being passed on in any way. So we're going to see the effects of that sooner rather than later," Julie added. She was one of several protest attendees who voiced such sentiments, warning of potential disaster on par with the space shuttle accidents. The droves of departures at NASA have also fueled some of the urgency that motivated many to attend the weekend's demonstration. "It's been the hardest to watch all that knowledge slip away," Julie said. "And that really kind of emboldens people to take a little bit of extra risk to come out with something like this on the weekend." Every protester who spoke at the demonstration, and with on Sunday stressed that their actions and remarks were not representative of NASA or their respective contract employers. Even the planning for the July 20 event was carefully and purposefully done outside employees' working hours, organizers said. "A lot of people here, I think, are pretty scared of any blowback on them at work," another protester, Will, told Will indicated that he previously worked for NASA, or a NASA contractor, but that is no longer the case. The internal climate at the space agency has undergone a dramatic shift this year, with a sense of suspicion guarding people's interactions. "There's a little bit more distrust than there was before, even within the community," Julie said. The majority of protesters in attendance Sunday work at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Goddard is one of two space agency facilities in the D.C. area, the other being NASA Headquarters. NASA Needs Help organizers held their first protest outside the agency's headquarters on June 30. Uneasiness within the space agency is particularly evident at Goddard. Approximately 10,000 employees work at the Maryland facility, either through contractors or for NASA directly. In addition to program and workforce cuts in the White House budget proposal, "passback" documents sent to the space agency in April also suggest shuttering Goddard completely. "Our management, our administration, is doing everything they can to break our will, to make us give up, to make us go do other things," decried one NASA engineer, who asked to remain anonymous, during the protest. "I'm here today because I fear for our astronauts' lives as we lose more and more expertise, and the technical expertise that we need to send them safely on their mission," she said. "Normally, supervisors say, 'Stay, we need you. You're an expert in your field. We want you to stay.' But right now, the civil servants at the top — that is people like Brian Hughes, like Goddard Center [Director] Mackenzie Lystrup, many more names, they are telling everybody below them to take the Deferred Resignation Program now," Finch told demonstrators. NASA leadership After nearly half a year of warnings about impending RIFs, some in management positions are beginning to take their own advice. According to a Politico report, over 2,000 senior leadership staff are expected to resign from the space agency to take advantage of the DRP initiatives. That includes aforementioned Goddard Center Director Mackenzie Lystrup. One day after NASA employees held their protest, Lystrup announced her resignation. Her abrupt departure intensifies concerns about the state of NASA's leadership, which currently seems more disjointed than ever. This could be seen during an Artemis Accords ceremony on Thursday (July 24), at which the ambassador of Senegal and other Senegalese officials added their signatures to the growing list of countries committed to the safe, collaborative exploration of the moon and deep space. Absent from those proceedings was interim NASA Administrator Duffy. Duffy was unexpectedly appointed to the post on July 9 through an announcement by Trump on his Truth Social platform. Duffy, who already serves as Secretary of Transportation, is now wearing both hats. Since his appointment, he has made no public remarks about his NASA role other than a small handful of supportive posts to a newly-created X account focused on his position at the space agency. Prior to 2025, many Artemis Accord signing ceremonies included past NASA Administrators Bill Nelson or Jim Bridenstine. Rather than Duffy, NASA Chief of Staff Brian Hughes oversaw Senegal's signing on Thursday. Also not in apparent attendance were Acting NASA Associate Administrator Vanessa Wyche and NASA Deputy Associate Administrator Casey Swails, both of whom, like Duffy, sit above Hughes in the NASA leadership hierarchy. Duffy did offer a retweet of NASA's post on X about the event. Voyager Declaration Circulating amongst NASA employees in the background leading up to the July 20 demonstration, another letter to Duffy communicated a similar message as that from the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. The Voyager Declaration was published July 21 as a formal statement protesting the proposed science cuts and preemptive actions already enacted by NASA leadership. The letter was signed by nearly 300 current and former NASA employees, 150 of whom chose to do so anonymously, "due to the culture of fear of retaliation cultivated by this administration," the letter states. "Major programmatic shifts at NASA must be implemented strategically so that risks are managed carefully," it states. "Instead, the last six months have seen rapid and wasteful changes which have undermined our mission and caused catastrophic impacts on NASA's workforce." Their grievances were listed in the letter (included verbatim): We dissent to changes to NASA's Technical Authority capacities that are driven by anything other than safety and mission assurance. We dissent to the closing out of missions for which Congress has appropriated funding. We dissent to implementing indiscriminate cuts to NASA science and aeronautics research. We dissent to NASA's non-strategic staffing reductions. We dissent to canceling NASA participation in international missions. We dissent to the termination of NASA contracts and grants for reasons unrelated to performance. We dissent to the elimination of programs aimed at developing and supporting NASA's workforce. Public impact Protesters at the July 20 demonstration warned of broader impacts that such substantial cuts could have on the public at large. NASA contract employees Justin and Madeline said they attended the protest to raise awareness about all the contributions to society that have come from NASA research and innovations. "A lot of the stuff we have on Earth, like our cell phones, hurricane coverage, that's all because of NASA. And defunding NASA means defunding all of that and making life worse for everyone," Justin told "And I don't think a lot of people realize that." NASA employee Ben put much of NASA's contributions into perspective by breaking down the numbers: "In 2023-2024, for every dollar that NASA got in tax revenue, NASA generated $3 in economic output in the United States. Our actual budget was $25 billion and we generated $75 billion from that $25 billion. We generated 300,000 jobs across the country … And setting all of that aside, what about things you can't put a price on?" His $75 billion output figure, while a reasonable estimate, is not yet confirmed. NASA has not released full economic impact reports for 2023 or 2024. Ben cited examples of NASA spinoff technology — advances in lasers developed by scientists building the James Webb Space Telescope are helping doctors perform eye surgeries on Earth, and innovations from the Hubble Space Telescope have contributed to mammogram imaging and technology used at hardware stores to match paint colors. "None of this stuff even is accounted for in that three-to-one benefit that NASA generates directly to the economy," Ben said. "Why, pray tell, in the name of efficiency, so called, is NASA the place you want to start slashing funding from?" "There's a lot of inventions that NASA has, if not created, at least catalyzed," Will told "If we zero out so many things, no longer are we going to have the great leap for mankind that Armstrong is so famously talking about." Human cost Julie echoed those sentiments, highlighting not a mission, but a whole department on the chopping block: NASA's Office of STEM Engagement (OSTEM). "OSTEM has been zeroed out completely," she said. "That not only has an effect on what we do at NASA in terms of workforce development, but also kids across the entire country won't have access to those programs, won't have access to scholarships that let them go on to grad school and let them learn other things." "A lot of what NASA does is train teachers, so teachers can train students. If that's something that goes away completely, it's going to impact the entire next generation of students." - Julie Another protester, who asked to be identified only as "MC", has worked as a teacher across a wide field of age ranges and learning abilities. "Every place I've ever taught, or every program I've ever supported — everybody needs science," she said. "Every curriculum I've ever developed had science … Science of all kinds is incredibly important. And space — space is where we're going." One protester, who identified herself as the mother of a NASA employee, stressed the value of empowering the next generation. "It's very important that our kids have their dreams and reach those dreams," she said. "If NASA is cut the way it is, STEM education is cut, science is cut, research is cut — we won't have kids who have dreams anymore." George is part of a team responsible for testing spacecraft at Goddard. He attended Sunday's protest alongside his wife and three daughters. "Goddard is looking at basically being shut down, and we have a whole bunch of people that know how to build individual, specific scientific spacecraft," he told "If we lose that [technical knowledge], it's gone." "Where are we going to learn how to do that again?" George added. "Are we going to have to have another Challenger moment to learn how to do that again? Maybe." George's daughters said they wanted to attend the protest to support their father. "It's his job, so obviously that's important to us," his eldest, 15, said. But she's also worried about what the future might look like if science takes a backseat at the space agency. "I think that we should also be concerned about science over the future generations," she said, calling the budget's potential ramifications a "big loss." Job security is on the forefront of many NASA employees and contractors, many of whom have already received notice that their mission is at "high risk" of cancellation. Justin hasn't received such a notice yet, but says the mission he works on studies climate change by measuring ice caps, "so I am assuming a couple things here," he said. That insecurity is already pushing some NASA scientists to look outside the agency. Amid potential layoffs, some are considering not just leaving the space agency, but the United States altogether. A lack of stability in the U.S. science community is opening the door for international recruitment. "Right now, Europe and Asia, every other country in the world, sees what's happening, and they're extending offers," Finch said to the crowd. "The next day, the members of the workforce are gone." Justin is still mulling over his options if his program gets canceled. But he came to a quick alignment with Madeline's stance that she would "probably work for a different country that values science." "That would be the one," Justin said in agreement. Several European institutions have already begun reaching out to scientists and engineers across the U.S. to gauge people's interest in continuing their work abroad. One representative said in an email obtained by that the responses to their initial outreach were "overwhelming (and worrying)." With budget negotiations still ongoing in Congress, protesters are urging lawmakers to act before NASA loses the talent and infrastructure that made its past achievements possible. "I don't want to be a member of the first generation of humans that stops exploring," Finch said. "We are not the ones who will suffer most — it is every generation of humans that will be set back by our abdication."

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