These facts suggest that several globular clusters are being born in GN-z11 as we see it, but also that those clusters still host active supermassive stars.
Why do some James Webb Space Telescope images show warped and repeated galaxies? James Webb Space Telescope spots huge galactic protocluster in the early universe (photo) James Webb Space Telescope snaps amazing photo of alien asteroid belt "It has been established that it contains very high proportions of nitrogen and a very high density of stars," said study team member Daniel Schaerer, an astronomy professor at the University of Geneva. The astronomers took light from GN-z11 seen by JWST and broke it down, finding two valuable pieces of information in the process. The galaxy is located around 13.3 billion light-years away, and JWST sees it as it was when it was just a few tens of millions of years old, making it a good choice as a hunting ground for young globular clusters.īecause chemical elements absorb and emit light at certain frequencies, the spectrum of light from cosmic sources contains "fingerprints" that point to the composition of celestial objects. The powerful space telescope saw light emitted by one of the most distant and earliest galaxies found to date, GN-z11.
To spot signs of these supermassive stars, the study team turned to the infrared vision of JWST to try and catch globular clusters earlier in their existence. "They therefore disappeared very early from the clusters that are currently observable. "Globular clusters are between 10 and 13 billion years old, whereas the maximum lifespan of superstars is two million years," team member Mark Gieles, of the University of Barcelona, said in the same statement. This is because they burn through their fuel for nuclear fusion quickly and thus have short lifespans. But, despite their intimidating size and fearsome temperatures, these stellar beasts are not always easy to locate. These supermassive stars are between 5,000 and 10,000 times as massive as the sun and are as hot as 135 million degrees Fahrenheit (75 million degrees Celsius) at their cores, compared to 27 million degrees F (15 million degrees C) or so at the heart of the sun. "Today, thanks to the data collected by the JWST, we believe we have found a first clue of the presence of these extraordinary stars," study lead author Corinne Charbonnel, an astronomy professor at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, said in a statement. Now, a team of researchers has announced that JWST has spotted chemical traces suggesting that monstrous stars are indeed lurking in stellar clusters, thus providing the first observational evidence for this enrichment theory. This leads to the infant stars being unevenly enriched with chemical elements as they are forming. One potential explanation for this mystery, suggested back in 2018, is that supermassive stars "pollute" the original gas cloud as globular clusters form.
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