Astronomers believe that the actual shape of the newborn galaxy is banana-shaped and not a sphere or disk as has been theorized.
For years, astronomers have been interested in how galaxies form, and from there various theories and unknowns have emerged, one of which is What does a newborn galaxy look like? Now James Webb has discovered that it could be ‘bananas’.
Previously, Experts believed that young galaxies are shaped like spheres, rings or thin disks.. However, new analysis of Webb’s observations showed that they appear to be banana-shaped.
According to The New York Times, researchers from Columbia University have reexamined observations of about 400 newborn galaxies seen by James Webband concluded that they had the shape of this fruit.
But beyond the metaphor, This discovery could change some of the knowledge we have about galaxies today.. “It’s a surprising and unexpected result, even though it’s been seen before with HST,” said Viraj Pandya, a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University and lead author of the study, which he will present Wednesday before the American Astronomical Society in New Orleans.
Pandya’s results They are preliminary, but if approved by colleagues, could help understand how galaxies form and grow. In addition, it would also contribute to the knowledge of the dark energy that surrounds these sets of stars.
Likewise, conclusions such as these have some support because Years ago, the Hubble telescope, the predecessor of the Webb, also observed regions of newborn galaxies, and studies in this regard indicated that they are cucumber-shaped.similar to bananas.
A galaxy shaped like bananas?
Pandya and his team analyzed observations from James Webb of an area of the sky known as the Extended Growth Stripwhich, in an earthly perspective, covers the same as the full moon in the sky.
Here, astronomers They found more linear and elongated figures, not circular. “They tend to look very linear, and some galaxies show a few bright protrusions arranged like pearls on a necklace,” Pandya noted.
In the same vein, they believe that galaxies like the Milky Way may have been banana galaxies in the past. “They have such masses that they would be the progenitors of galaxies such as the Milky Way, and this means that in the past our own galaxy may have gone through a morphological phase similar to a cigar or a surfboard,” he compared.
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According to an analysis of new images from the James Webb Space Telescope, small galaxies were neither eggs nor disks. They were bananas. That’s the preliminary conclusion of a team of astronomers who reviewed images of about 4,000 newborn galaxies. pic.twitter.com/ViddD0vZvE— Chandragupt Institute of Management Patna (CIMP) (@CimpMedia) January 8, 2024
The aforementioned media consulted this new preliminary conclusion with astronomer Alan Dressler of the Carnegie Observatories. The expert mentioned that it could be an important discovery. “I really think it’s important, extremely important if it’s true.“, he said.
But he still looked suspicious. “Given the difficulty of performing measurements of this type, I am somewhat skeptical of this result. Especially for distant, small and not very bright galaxies“, he pointed out.
For now, we have to wait for the study to be presented and then peer-reviewed at the time of its publication, which will be in the journal Astrophysical Journalunder the title “Galaxies Going Bananas”, which can be translated as “Galaxies are going bananas”.
