![]() Until now, astronomers could not see the surrounding compact objects of the Sparkler galaxy with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Photo courtesy of Lamiya Mowla and Kartheik Iyer. ![]() (L-R) Kartheik Iyer, Vince Estrada-Carpenter, Guillaume Desperez, Lamiya Mowla, Marcin Sawicki, Victoria Strait, Gabe Brammer and Kate Gould (on laptop screen), Ghassan Sarrouh, Chris Willott, Bob Abraham, Gael Noirot, Yoshi Asada, Nick Martis. Members of the CANUCS research team examining images of the Sparkler. Think of it as guessing a person's age based on their appearance - it’s easy to tell the difference between a 5- and 10-year-old, but hard to tell the difference between a 50- and 55-year-old.” We are observing the Sparkler as it was nine billion years ago, when the universe was only four-and-a-half billion years old, looking at something that happened a long time ago. “Because the Sparkler galaxy is much farther away than our own Milky Way, it is easier to determine the ages of its globular clusters. “These newly identified clusters were formed close to the first time it was even possible to form stars,” says Mowla. Using very distant globular clusters to age-date the first stars in distant galaxies has not been done before and is only possible with JWST. Astronomers know that globular clusters can be extremely old, but it is incredibly challenging to measure their ages. The Milky Way galaxy has about 150 globular clusters, and how and when exactly these dense clumps of stars formed is not well understood. We hope the knowledge that globular clusters can be observed at from such great distances with JWST will spur further science and searches for similar objects.” “Since we could observe the sparkles across a range of wavelengths, we could model them and better understand their physical properties, like how old they are and how many stars they contain. Iyer, Dunlap Fellow at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics and co-lead author of the study. “Looking at the first images from JWST and discovering old globular clusters around distant galaxies was an incredible moment, one that wasn’t possible with previous Hubble Space Telescope imaging,” says Kartheik G. 2022.įrom their initial analysis of 12 of these compact objects, the researchers determined that five of them are not only globular clusters but among the oldest ones known. Image: Canadian Space Agency with images from NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI Mowla, Iyer et al. The researchers studied the Sparkler galaxy located in Webb’s First Deep Field and used JWST to determine that five of the sparkling objects around it are globular clusters. Globular clusters are ancient collections of stars from a galaxy’s infancy and contain clues about its earliest phases of formation and growth. This galaxy got its name for the compact objects appearing as small yellow-red dots surrounding it, referred to by the researchers as “sparkles.” The team posited that these sparkles could either be young clusters actively forming stars - born three billion years after the Big Bang at the peak of star formation - or old globular clusters. In the finely detailed Webb’s First Deep Field image, the researchers zeroed in on what they’ve dubbed “the Sparkler galaxy,” which is nine billion light years away. “This discovery in Webb’s First Deep Field is already providing a detailed look at the earliest phase of star formation, confirming the incredible power of JWST.” “JWST was built to find the first stars and the first galaxies and to help us understand the origins of complexity in the universe, such as the chemical elements and the building blocks of life,” says Lamiya Mowla, Dunlap Fellow at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics in the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto and co-lead author of the study. The early analysis of Webb’s First Deep Field image, which depicts some of the universe’s earliest galaxies, is published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. These dense groups of millions of stars may be relics that contain the first and oldest stars in the universe. Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), researchers from the Canadian NIRISS Unbiased Cluster Survey (CANUCS) team - including observational astronomers from the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics in the Faculty of Arts & Science - have identified the most distant globular clusters ever discovered.
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