Currently, a lot of the research we see coming from JWST is focused on the early universe.
In a new set of images and spectra, researchers used the JWST to explore a region of the sky known to contain a distant quasar. These active galaxies contain a feeding blackhole and emit so much light from the dense region around the black hole that sometimes only the core’s star-like glow is visible. The light from this particular quasar headed our way when the universe was just 830 million years old. It was originally observed by both ALMA and the much smaller HST. With these observatories, the quasar, cataloged as J0305–3150, appeared to shine alone from the early universe.
With JWST, … astronomers were able to see that J0305–3150 is hanging out, all lined up, with friends.
Literally, these systems are all lined up, forming a 3-million light year long filament.
These results are posted in a pair of papers in the Astrophysical Journal Letters led by Jinyi Yang and Feige Wang.
It’s totally normal to find galaxies grouped together. What is remarkable here is how early in the universe we’re seeing such a well defined thread of systems. As the story goes, our universe formed with a slightly lumpy density. Where there was a little more material, gravity gathered in mass, and over time gathered in enough gas to form galaxies
According to Wang, “This is one of the earliest filamentary structures that people have ever found associated with a distant quasar,” and this is the first time a structure of this kind has been observed at such an early time in the universe and in 3D detail.
Quasar J0305–3150 is just the first of 25 systems that will be observed as part of the ASPIRE survey. All 25 systems are shining from the early universe and this survey should allow us to answer questions around from how much structure formed and star formation took place in the first billion years when our universe became transparent to starlight. As we get more results about additional systems, we’ll bring them to you right here on EVSN.
Reference:
Wang, F., Yang, J., Hennawi, J.F., Fan, X., Sun, F., Champagne, J.B., Costa, T., Habouzit, M., Endsley, R., Li, Z. and Lin, X., 2023. A SPectroscopic survey of biased halos In the Reionization Era (ASPIRE): JWST Reveals a Filamentary Structure around az= 6.61 Quasar. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 951(1), p.L4.