An international collaboration, led by Ángela Adamo from Stockholm University and the Oscar Klein Centre in Sweden, has discovered five gravitationally bound star clusters in a galaxy whose light was emitted when the universe was only 460 million years old, thanks to observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST – NASA/ESA/CSA). This discovery, published in the journal Nature, involved members of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), specifically from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) and the Institute of Physics of Cantabria (IFCA-CSIC-UC).
Yolanda Jiménez, postdoctoral researcher at IAA-CSIC and co-author of the work, explained that these structures are the oldest star clusters ever detected and could be precursors to the globular clusters we currently observe in our galaxy. José M. Diego, scientific researcher at IFCA-CSIC-UC and also co-author of the article, added that this discovery demonstrates how, thanks to James Webb, we are uncovering the earliest stages of our universe.
The direct observation of these structures would not have been possible without the help of gravitational lenses, which are large accumulations of matter that lie between our line of sight to distant galaxies and act as “magnifying glasses” that enlarge the objects behind them, sometimes distorting their image into an arc shape. In this case, the galaxy cluster SPT-CL J0615−5746 was responsible for magnifying the light of a galaxy named Cosmic Gems arc, originating from the early stages of the universe’s formation.
This distant galaxy had already been discovered previously by the RELICS collaboration using data from the Hubble Space Telescope, but it has been thanks to James Webb that its fascinating structure has been revealed. James Webb’s observations, with its extraordinary resolution and sensitivity, revealed the presence of five compact points distributed along the Cosmic Gems arc, resembling a string of pearls. These five ‘Gems’ appeared duplicated almost symmetrically at the other end of the arc, an unmistakable sign that they were points where the magnification power of the lensing cluster was at its maximum.
A thorough and detailed analysis of these tiny structures revealed that they are star clusters, systems of gravitationally bound stars in which we cannot resolve their individual members. The clusters observed in the Cosmic Gems arc show significantly higher stellar densities and much smaller sizes than typical young star clusters observed in nearby galaxies. These characteristics suggest that these newly discovered star clusters could be the precursors of the globular clusters we currently observe in our own galaxy, the Milky Way.
Globular clusters are groups of thousands or tens of thousands of old stars gravitationally bound, scattered throughout the halo of the Milky Way, some with ages comparable to the galaxy itself. Yolanda Jiménez pointed out that this result is of great importance, as we currently do not know the origin of globular clusters, and the discovery of the Gems provides for the first time a timeline for their formation and reveals their initial physical properties. The Gems are also responsible for most of the ultraviolet emission from the galaxy they are in, making them one of the main sources of reionization in the early universe.
The participation of CSIC in this discovery has been crucial. From the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA), an algorithm was developed for analyzing the light from the Gems, which is very complex due to the need to separate this light from other contaminating sources. José M. Diego from IFCA-CSIC-UC added that a model of the gravitational lens effect is necessary to understand the magnification of the arc, and one of the unresolved questions is why only five double images are seen when six were expected. A possible explanation is the presence of an undetected dwarf galaxy with a lower magnification power.
New observations with the James Webb Space Telescope are scheduled for 2025, aiming to study this interesting arc and its globular clusters in depth, promising to reveal some of the best-kept secrets about the formation of the universe.
SOURCES
Adamo, A., Bradley, L.D., Vanzella, E. et al. Bound star clusters observed in a lensed galaxy 460 Myr after the Big Bang. Nature (2024). doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07703-7
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