Latest news with #StefanoCarniani
BBC News
21-03-2025
- Science
- BBC News
Oxygen found in most distant known galaxy from Earth
Oxygen has been found in the most distant galaxy ever as JADES-GS-z14-0, the galaxy was detected last year by Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope. Its light took more than thirteen billion years to reach Earth, meaning it can reveal what the universe was like when it was just 300 million years old. Astronomers say that the discovery provides evidence that the universe developed much faster after the Big Bang than previously thought. What have scientists discovered? The study was carried out by two teams of experts - one from Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands and the other by the Scuola Normale Superiore University in Pisa, both used data from the Alma telescope in the Chilean to the European Southern Observatory, galaxies usually start their lives full of young stars, which are made mostly of light elements such as hydrogen and stars evolve, they create heavier elements like oxygen, which then gets scattered through their galaxy after they previously believed that a galaxy such as JADES-GS-z14-0, which is only 300 million years old, was therefore too young to contain the two different teams of astronomers found that despite its young age, JADES-GS-z14-0 contained around 10 times more heavy elements than Schouws, from Leiden Observatory, said: "The results show the galaxy has formed very rapidly and is also maturing rapidly, adding to a growing body of evidence that the formation of galaxies happens much faster than was expected."Stefano Carniani, from the Scuola Normale Superiore, added: "I was astonished by the unexpected results because they opened a new view on the first phases of galaxy evolution."The evidence that a galaxy is already mature in the infant Universe raises questions about when and how galaxies formed," he explained.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Universe grew ‘much faster than expected' after Big Bang, astronomers say
Astronomers have said the Universe may have developed 'much faster than was expected' after oxygen was found in the most distant known galaxy. Scientists working with the Alma telescope in Chile's Atacama Desert said they were 'astonished' by the detection of oxygen in Jades-GS-z14-0, the most distant confirmed galaxy ever found, as it suggests galaxies formed more rapidly after the Big Bang than previously thought. The light from Jades-GS-z14-0, which was discovered last year by scientists using Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope, took 13.4 billion years to reach Earth. This means observers see it as it was when the Universe was less than 300 million years old, about 2% of its present age, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) said. Researchers previously believed that a 300-million-year-old Universe was still too young to have galaxies full of heavy elements such as oxygen, as these only disperse through galaxies after the death of stars inside them. 'It is like finding an adolescent where you would only expect babies,' said Sander Schouws, a PhD candidate at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands. 'The results show the galaxy has formed very rapidly and is also maturing rapidly, adding to a growing body of evidence that the formation of galaxies happens much faster than was expected.' Stefano Carniani, of the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa in Italy, said: 'I was astonished by the unexpected results because they opened a new view on the first phases of galaxy evolution'. 'The evidence that a galaxy is already mature in the infant Universe raises questions about when and how galaxies formed.' Galaxies usually start their lives full of young stars, which are made mostly of light elements like hydrogen and helium, ESO said. As stars evolve, they create heavier elements like oxygen, which get dispersed through their host galaxy after they die. But two different teams of astronomers found Jades-GS-z14-0 to contain about 10 times more heavy elements than expected. The 'record-breaking' oxygen detection has also allowed astronomers to make their distance measurements to Jades-GS-z14-0 much more accurate, ESO added. Eleonora Parlanti, a PhD student at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, said: 'The Alma detection offers an extraordinarily precise measurement of the galaxy's distance down to an uncertainty of just 0.005%. 'This level of precision, analogous to being accurate within 5cm over a distance of 1km, helps refine our understanding of distant galaxy properties.' Gergo Popping, an ESO astronomer at the European Alma Regional Centre who did not take part in the studies, said: 'I was really surprised by this clear detection of oxygen in Jades-GS-z14-0. 'It suggests galaxies can form more rapidly after the Big Bang than had previously been thought. 'This result showcases the important role Alma plays in unravelling the conditions under which the first galaxies in our Universe formed.' The two studies, one led by the Netherland's Leiden Observatory and the other by the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, were based on results from the Alma telescope (Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array), and carried out in partnership with ESO.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Oxygen discovered in most distant galaxy ever seen: 'It is like finding an adolescent where you would only expect babies'
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Astronomers have found oxygen in the farthest, and thus the earliest, galaxy ever seen. This marks the most distant detection of oxygen ever made by humanity. This early galaxy, designated JADES-GS-z14-0, has 10 times the amount of heavy elements that would be expected in a galaxy that existed just 300 million years after the Big Bang. The findings indicate that this galaxy was already mature in the early universe, challenging theories of galactic evolution. JADES-GS-z14-0 was discovered in 2024 by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST); its light had taken about 13.4 billion years to travel to us, equivalent to around 98% of the 13.8 billion-year-old universe's lifetime. The newly unearthed chemical composition of JADES-GS-z14-0 came courtesy of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). "It is like finding an adolescent where you would only expect babies," team member and Leiden Observatory researcher Sander Schouws said in a statement. "The results show the galaxy has formed very rapidly and is also maturing rapidly, adding to a growing body of evidence that the formation of galaxies happens much faster than was expected." JADES-GS-z14-0 was spotted alongside several other similarly early galaxies as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) program. This project aims to provide vital insights into how stars, gas and black holes evolved within primordial galaxies when the 13.8 billion-year-old universe was very young. To understand why it is so surprising for heavy elements to be discovered in an early galaxy like JADES-GS-z14-0, it is necessary to consider the chemical composition of the infant universe. When the universe was 2% of its current age, scientists think it was filled predominantly with hydrogen, the lightest element in the cosmos, some helium, and a tiny smattering of heavier elements, which astronomers somewhat confusingly call "metals." This means stars and galaxies seen during this period should be correspondingly "metal-poor." As these first stars died and exploded in supernova explosions, the metals they had forged during their lives were dispersed, enriching the gas clouds within their home galaxies. These clouds eventually formed the next generation of stars, which were therefore more metal-rich. That means the older a galaxy gets, the more its "maturity" can be measured based on the abundance of metals it holds. And, seen at 300 million years into the life of the cosmos, JADES-GS-z14-0 should be metal-poor and "immature" — yet it appears to be mature. 'I was astonished by the unexpected results because they opened a new view on the first phases of galaxy evolution," team member Stefano Carniani of the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, Italy, said in the statement. "The evidence that a galaxy is already mature in the infant universe raises questions about when and how galaxies formed." The detection of oxygen in this early galaxy has also allowed astronomers to measure the distance to JADES-GS-z14-0 more precisely. "The ALMA detection offers an extraordinarily precise measurement of the galaxy's distance down to an uncertainty of just 0.005%," team member Eleonora Parlanti of the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, Italy, said. "This level of precision — analogous to being accurate within 5 cm over a distance of 0.62 miles [1 kilometer] — helps refine our understanding of distant galaxy properties." While it took the JWST to discover this incredibly distant galaxy, the precise measurement of its distance from Earth wouldn't have been possible without ALMA."This shows the amazing synergy between ALMA and JWST to reveal the formation and evolution of the first galaxies," team member and Leiden Observatory astronomer Rychard Bouwens said in the statement Related stories: — James Webb Space Telescope spies record-breaking 'failed star' that shouldn't exist (video) — James Webb Space Telescope spots the most distant galaxy ever seen (image) — 'Failed star' is the coldest radio wave source ever discovered Gergö Popping is an astronomer at the European ALMA Regional Center who was not involved in this research. "I was really surprised by this clear detection of oxygen in JADES-GS-z14-0," he said. "It suggests galaxies can form more rapidly after the Big Bang than had previously been thought. "This result showcases the important role ALMA plays in unraveling the conditions under which the first galaxies in our universe formed." The team's research has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Astronomers Stunned by Abundant Oxygen in Earliest Known Galaxy
A galaxy gleaming in the Cosmic Dawn, just 300 million years after the Big Bang, has just been spotted harboring something it oughtn't. JADES-GS-z14-0, new observations reveal, is rich with oxygen – which is an absolute banger of a surprise, since scientists had thought elements heavier than hydrogen and helium weren't around in significant quantities until much later in time. It's yet another clue that the early Universe matured much more quickly than we thought possible. "It is like finding an adolescent where you would only expect babies," says cosmologist Sander Schouws of Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands. "The results show the galaxy has formed very rapidly and is also maturing rapidly, adding to a growing body of evidence that the formation of galaxies happens much faster than was expected." The mere existence of JADES-GS-z14-0 was problematic enough for our cosmological models, since we believe that galaxies need quite a bit of time to grow. In order to be detectable to our telescopes across more than 13.4 billion light-years, the galaxy needed to be quite large and bright – too large and bright to be easily explained. The other thing that takes time to grow is elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. When the Universe as we know it first winked into existence in the Big Bang, the first elements that formed were hydrogen and helium. Overdensities in this medium led to the formation of the first stars. The gas collapsed in on itself under gravity; more gas fed the growth until the core was hot and dense enough to kickstart the fusion of hydrogen atoms into heavier and heavier elements. It's only through this process of stellar core fusion that oxygen came to exist – and here's the sting in the tail. The star has to live its entire life and die in a supernova for those fused elements to disperse out into space. That can happen in a relatively short timeframe; the lifetimes of the most massive stars can be less than 10 million years. But when a team of astronomers took measurements of the galaxy using the powerful Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile, the amount of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium detected in JADES-GS-z14-0 was 10 times higher than predicted. The result suggests that the production rate is likewise beyond our wildest expectations. "I was astonished by the unexpected results because they opened a new view on the first phases of galaxy evolution," says astrophysicist Stefano Carniani of the Scuola Normale Superiore in Italy. "The evidence that a galaxy is already mature in the infant Universe raises questions about when and how galaxies formed." Because space is expanding, the light emitted from distant galaxies has become stretched into red wavelengths due to the Doppler effect. JWST is the most powerful infrared space telescope ever built, optimized for detecting these redshifted objects. Since it has launched, astronomers have discovered more large galaxies way earlier in the Universe than we expected to see, painting a very different picture of how the early Universe evolved in the first billion years after the Big Bang. This latest discovery of oxygen in JADES-GS-z14-0 is just another piece of the puzzle, increasingly indicating that galaxies grew and evolved much more quickly than we thought in the early Universe. Now we just have to figure out how that rapid growth changes the cosmological timeline, and what other assumptions we have about the early Universe need to be reexamined. The research has been detailed in two papers accepted into The Astrophysical Journal and Astronomy & Astrophysics. They are available on arXiv, here and here. Space Is Set to Become a 'Wild West' as Outdated Laws Struggle to Keep Up JWST Detects Carbon Dioxide Outside Solar System For First Time Euclid's First Deep Fields Images Offer Glimpse Into 'Dark Universe'
Khaleej Times
20-03-2025
- Science
- Khaleej Times
Oxygen detected in most distant galaxy: 'Astonished' astronomers
Oxygen has been detected in the most distant galaxy ever discovered, surprised astronomers said on Thursday, offering further evidence that stars in the early universe matured far quicker than had been thought possible. The galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0, which was discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope last year, is so far away that its light took 13.4 billion years to reach Earth. This means the galaxy can also reveal what the universe was like in its infancy, when it was just 300 million years old — two percent of its current age. Since coming online in 2022, the powerful Webb telescope has discovered that galaxies in the young universe were much brighter, more advanced and more numerous than scientists had expected. These discoveries have been so startling they have raised doubts about whether something important is missing in our understanding of the universe. For the latest research, two international teams led by Dutch and Italian astronomers probed the JADES-GS-z14-0 galaxy using the ALMA radio telescope in Chile's Atacama desert. They detected traces of oxygen, according to the European Southern Observatory, confirming hints previously spotted by the Webb telescope. During this period known as the cosmic dawn, newly born galaxies were thought to only have young stars, which mostly contain light elements like hydrogen and helium. Only later were they supposed to get heavier stuff such as oxygen. But the two new studies found that JADES-GS-z14-0 has around 10 times more heavy elements than had been anticipated. "It is like finding an adolescent where you would only expect babies," said Sander Schouws of Leiden Observatory, the first author of a Dutch-led study to be published in The Astrophysical Journal. "The results show the galaxy has formed very rapidly and is also maturing rapidly, adding to a growing body of evidence that the formation of galaxies happens much faster than was expected," he said in a statement. Astrophysicist Stefano Carniani, lead author of the Italian-led paper to be published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, said he was "astonished by the unexpected results". "The evidence that a galaxy is already mature in the infant universe raises questions about when and how galaxies formed."
