NASA James Webb Space Telescope snaps ghostly galaxy formed just 900 mn years after Big Bang

NASA James Webb Space Telescope captures an image of a dusty galaxy that has hundreds of stars in ghostly shapes, which formed 900 mn years after the Big Bang.

NASA James Webb Space Telescope captured a star-forming ghost-like galaxy that formed just 900 mn years after the Big Bang. (Representative image) (AFP)

Over the years, NASA's most powerful James Webb Space Telescope has been providing amazing insights on deep space to researchers and astronomers. Now, it has snapped a scary looking star-forming galaxy in deep space which was created millions of years ago. The galaxy was first captured by the Hubble Space Telescope earlier, however, it had disappeared from the images. Then, NASA's Webb telescope catured a faint image of the galaxy when it reappeared. Know more about this ghostly galaxy here.

NASA James Webb Space Telescope findings

According to research published in The Astrophysical Journal, the dusty galaxy has been named AzTECC71. It is extremely old. In fact, it was formed just 900 million years after the Big Bang. researchers said that the galaxy is producing hundreds of stars due to which it is covered with a dusty veil. Scientists say that the newly discovered galaxy is one of the oldest found and there might be three to ten such galaxies present in the early universe. If the speculation comes out to be true, then scientists might have to rethink about the theories of the early universe.

Jed McKinney, a researcher at the University of Texas postdoctoral and coauthor of the study said, “This thing is a real monster, Even though it looks like a little blob, it's actually forming hundreds of new stars every year.” It is also speculated that the early universe was much more dusty than previously thought.

The research was conducted as part of the JWST's COSMOS-Web project which aimed to study as many as 1 million galaxies to gain a better understanding of the early universe. However, studying these galaxies is filled with challenges as their light appears dusty when viewed with optical light.

McKinney said, “With JWST, we can study for the first time the optical and infrared properties of this heavily dust-obscured, hidden population of galaxies.” he talks about the capabilities of the NASA James Webb Space Telescope and its reach to the farthest galaxies.

Therefore, researchers say the theories based on the evolution of the universe are biased as only unobscured galaxies have been studied. Having more understanding about such dusty star-forming galaxies can unveil more secrets.