Using the James Webb Telescope, astronomers have detected the presence of complex organic molecules, comparable to Earth’s smog or smoke, in a galaxy located over 12 billion light-years away. This distant galaxy coincidentally aligns almost perfectly with a second galaxy merely three billion light-years away from our vantage point on Earth. The image from Webb presents the foreground galaxy in blue and the distant one in red, while the organic compounds are highlighted in orange. The image credit goes to J. Spilker / S. Doyle, NASA, ESA, CSA.
An international team of astronomers made this groundbreaking discovery with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. They found these complex organic compounds in a far-off galaxy, challenging previous assumptions about the relationship between these molecules and star formation. This breakthrough was enabled by the combined abilities of the Webb telescope and gravitational lensing, a process that happens when two galaxies align from our observation point on Earth. This marks Webb’s inaugural detection of complex molecules in the early universe, opening up new avenues for understanding the nature of galaxies and the universe’s history.
Astronomers from Texas A&M University, including Justin Spilker, used the Webb telescope to detect these organic molecules in a galaxy more than 12 billion light-years away. This galaxy was first noticed by the National Science Foundation’s South Pole Telescope in 2013 and has been under observation by many observatories, such as the radio telescope ALMA and the Hubble Space Telescope.
Spilker reported in the journal Nature on June 5 that the detection was made possible through the combined effects of the Webb telescope and gravitational lensing. Gravitational lensing is a phenomenon originally predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, where the light from a background galaxy is stretched and magnified by a foreground galaxy, resulting in a ring-like structure, called an Einstein ring.
Lensing helps astronomers study distant galaxies in more detail than would otherwise be possible. The Webb telescope detected the signature of large organic molecules, similar to smog and smoke – elements linked to atmospheric pollution on Earth. Spilker pointed out that the presence of such molecules in space was formerly thought to signify new star formation. However, the latest data from Webb indicate this may not be the case in the early universe.
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign graduate student Kedar Phadke, who led the technical development of the team’s Webb observations, expressed the powerful capabilities of Webb in studying the universe’s early stages in novel and thrilling ways. The international team also includes NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center astronomer Jane Rigby, University of Illinois professor Joaquin Vieira, and numerous astronomers worldwide.
This discovery is Webb’s first detection of complex molecules in the early universe, and Spilker sees it as the beginning of a new era in astronomy. The team’s paper, “Spatial variations in aromatic hydrocarbon emission in a dust-rich galaxy,” can be viewed online.
JWST is managed by the Space Telescope Science Institute under the oversight of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy under NASA contract NAS 5-03127. The South Pole Telescope is supported by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the United States Antarctic Program.
