space telescope James Webb’s NASA has discovered dozens of galaxies that may be among the earliest known galaxies in the universe. Using early telescope observations, astronomers looked for galaxies with “very high redshifts” that would indicate that these galaxies formed earlier in the universe. According to expressions The team at the University of Missouri discovered 87 galaxies in the universe that may have first appeared about 200 to 400 million years later. Big Bang.

“The detection of such a large number galaxies He suggests that in the early parts of the universe, we may need to revise our previous understanding of formation. galaxiessaid Haojing Yang, an astronomer at the University of Missouri and lead author of the study. Declaration. “Our discovery gives us the first indication that many galaxies in the universe may have formed much earlier than previously thought.”

The team was called red shifts In infrared light recorded by Webb. This method allowed them to measure the distance of galaxies by observing the color change in the light waves they emit.

“As the light emitting source moves towards us, the light is ‘squeezed’ and this shorter wavelength is represented by blue light, or blue shift,” Yang said in a statement. “But if it is a resource [світла] As it moves away from us, the light it produces is “stretched” and converted to a longer wavelength, represented by red light, or redshift.”

The universe after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago constantly expandedthat is, galaxies we observe beyond our own Milky Way galaxyis moving away from us. The greater the redshift, the further away the galaxy is from us. And because light from other galaxies takes a long time to reach us, the farther away a galaxy is, the sooner we see it. Therefore, the search for galaxies with very high redshifts provides information about the early universe.

“speed of light limited, so it takes time for light to travel the distance to reach us,” Yang said in a statement. sun, we don’t look at how he looked now, we look at how he looked eight minutes ago. This is because it takes so long for solar radiation to reach us. . So when we look at galaxies very far away, we’re looking at images of them taken a long time ago.”

Objects at high redshifts (11 and above) can only be detected by infrared light, so Webb played a pivotal role in observing these 87 galaxies. For comparison, Hubble Space Telescope it only sees ultraviolet to near-infrared light, so astronomers previously thought galaxies at redshift 11 were very few.

“I believe this discovery is just the tip of the iceberg because the data we use covers a very small part of the universe,” Yang said in a statement. Said. “From now on, I expect other groups of astronomers to find similar results in other parts of space because [Вебб] continues to give us a new look at the deepest parts of our universe.”