Simple understand this fact that when telescopes look at the light from distant galaxies, they are not literally looking back in time. The past no longer exists, so no one can directly look This allows accurate an unambiguous identification (red circle) of counterparts in complementary data at many other wavelengths: including (from top to bottom) optical images from the Subaru 8m telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope mid-infrared images at 24 and 3.6 microns, and VLA radio maps. The telescope's revolutionary technology will explore every phase of cosmic history — from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe, to everything in between. Webb will reveal new and unexpected discoveries and help humanity understand the origins of the universe and our place in it. Luyện thi 2023 The telescope will photograph distant galaxies, attempt to understand their past. The telescope will photograph distant galaxies, __________ attempt to understand their past. A. in B. for C. on D. with Đáp án A Dịch: Kính viễn vọng sẽ chụp ảnh dải ngân hà xa xôi, cố gắng để hiểu về quá khứ của chúng. Cấu trúc Very distant, active supermassive black holes are the brightest beacons in the universe. Known as quasars, these behemoths are surrounded by equally distant galaxies. In recent decades, researchers have gone on a cosmic treasure hunt and identified the three most distant quasars known over the last three years - each more than 13 billion light-years from Earth. Astronomers theorize that it Qv2cWXj. A telescope image of distant galaxies, showing thousands of bright stars and galaxies on a black background. In a zoomed-in box is the pale, faint galaxy detected in this new study. Image credit NASA, ESA, CSA, Swinburne University of Technology, University of Pittsburgh, STScI The James Webb Space Telescope JWST has identified one of the most distant galaxies ever seen — an ancient, nearly invisible star cluster so remote that its light is the faintest scientists have ever JD1, the galaxy — whose light traveled for roughly billion years to reach us — was born just a few million years after the Big Bang. Back then, the cosmos was shrouded in a pitch-black fog that not even light could pass through; galaxies like this one were vital in burning the gloom from within the Sculptor constellation in the southern sky, JD1's light left its source when the universe was just 4% of its current age. The light crossed dissipating gas clouds and boundless space before passing through the galaxy cluster Abell 2744, whose space-time-warping gravitational pull acted as a giant magnifying lens to steer the ancient galaxy into focus for the JWST. The researchers who discovered the dim, distant galaxy published their findings May 17 in the journal Can the James Webb Space Telescope really see the past?"Before the Webb telescope switched on, just a year ago, we could not even dream of confirming such a faint galaxy," Tommaso Treu, a physics and astronomy professor at the University of California, Los Angeles UCLA, said in a statement. "The combination of JWST and the magnifying power of gravitational lensing is a revolution. We are rewriting the book on how galaxies formed and evolved in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang."In the first hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang, the expanding universe cooled enough to allow protons to bind with electrons, creating a vast shroud of light-blocking hydrogen gas that blanketed the cosmos in darkness. From the eddies of this cosmic sea-foam, the first stars and galaxies clotted, beaming out ultraviolet light that reionized the hydrogen fog, breaking it down into protons and electrons to render the universe transparent have observed evidence for reionization in many places the dimming of brightly flaring quasars ultrabright objects powered by supermassive black holes; the scattering of light from electrons in the cosmic microwave background; and the infrequent, dim light given off by hydrogen clouds. Yet because the first galaxies used so much of their light to dissipate the stifling hydrogen mist, what they actually looked like has long remained a mystery to astronomers. "Most of the galaxies found with JWST so far are bright galaxies that are rare and not thought to be particularly representative of the young galaxies that populated the early universe," first author Guido Roberts-Borsani, an astronomer at UCLA, said in the statement. "As such, while important, they are not thought to be the main agents that burned through all of that hydrogen fog."Ultra-faint galaxies such as JD1, on the other hand, are far more numerous, which is why we believe they are more representative of the galaxies that conducted the reionization process, allowing ultraviolet light to travel unimpeded through space and time," Roberts-Borsani discover JD1's first stirrings from beneath its hydrogen cocoon, the researchers used the JWST to study the galaxy's gravitationally lensed image in the infrared and near-infrared spectra of light. This enabled them to detect JD1's age, distance from Earth and elemental composition, as well as estimate how many stars it had formed. The team also made out a trace of the galaxy's structure a compact glob built from three main spurs of star-birthing gas and dust. The astronomers' next task is to use their technique to unveil even more of these first galaxies, revealing how they worked in unison to bathe the universe in light. Stay up to date on the latest science news by signing up for our Essentials newsletter. Ben Turner is a based staff writer at Live Science. He covers physics and astronomy, among other topics like tech and climate change. He graduated from University College London with a degree in particle physics before training as a journalist. When he's not writing, Ben enjoys reading literature, playing the guitar and embarrassing himself with chess. Tags Most Popular An international team of astronomers has detected complex organic molecules in the most distant galaxy to date using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The discovery of the molecules, which are familiar on Earth in smoke, soot and smog, demonstrates the power of Webb to help understand the complex chemistry that goes hand-in-hand with the birth of new stars even in the earliest periods of the universe’s history. At least for galaxies, the new findings cast doubt on the old adage that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Using the Webb telescope, Texas A&M University astronomer Justin Spilker and collaborators found the organic molecules in a galaxy more than 12 billion light-years away. Because of its extreme distance, the light detected by the astronomers began its journey when the universe was less than billion years old — about 10% of its current age. The galaxy was first discovered by the National Science Foundation’s South Pole Telescope in 2013 and has since been studied by many observatories, including the radio telescope ALMA and the Hubble Space Telescope. Spilker notes the discovery, reported this week in the journal Nature, was made possible through the combined powers of Webb and fate, with a little help from a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. Lensing, originally predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, happens when two galaxies are almost perfectly aligned from our point of view on Earth. The light from the background galaxy is stretched and magnified by the foreground galaxy into a ring-like shape, known as an Einstein ring. “By combining Webb’s amazing capabilities with a natural 'cosmic magnifying glass,' we were able to see even more detail than we otherwise could,” said Spilker, an assistant professor in the Texas A&M Department of Physics and Astronomy and a member of the George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy. “That level of magnification is actually what made us interested in looking at this galaxy with Webb in the first place, because it really lets us see all the rich details of what makes up a galaxy in the early universe that we could never do otherwise.” The data from Webb found the telltale signature of large organic molecules akin to smog and smoke —building blocks of the same cancer-causing hydrocarbon emissions on Earth that are key contributors to atmospheric pollution. However, Spilker says the implications of galactic smoke signals are much less disastrous for their cosmic ecosystems. “These big molecules are actually pretty common in space,” Spilker explained. “Astronomers used to think they were a good sign that new stars were forming. Anywhere you saw these molecules, baby stars were also right there blazing away.” The new results from Webb show that this idea might not exactly ring true in the early universe, according to Spilker. “Thanks to the high-definition images from Webb, we found a lot of regions with smoke but no star formation, and others with new stars forming but no smoke,” Spilker added. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign graduate student Kedar Phadke, who led the technical development of the team’s Webb observations, noted that astronomers are using Webb to make connections across the vastness of space with unprecedented potential. “Discoveries like this are precisely what Webb was built to do understand the earliest stages of the universe in new and exciting ways,” Phadke said. “It’s amazing that we can identify molecules billions of light-years away that we’re familiar with here on Earth, even if they show up in ways we don’t like, like smog and smoke. It's also a powerful statement about the amazing capabilities of Webb that we've never had before.” The team’s leadership also includes NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center astronomer Jane Rigby, University of Illinois professor Joaquin Vieira and dozens of astronomers around the world. The discovery is Webb’s first detection of complex molecules in the early universe — a milestone moment that Spilker sees as a beginning rather than an end. “These are early days for the Webb Telescope, so astronomers are excited to see all the new things it can do for us,” Spilker said. “Detecting smoke in a galaxy early in the history of the universe? Webb makes this look easy. Now that we’ve shown this is possible for the first time, we’re looking forward to trying to understand whether it’s really true that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Maybe we’ll even be able to find galaxies that are so young that complex molecules like these haven’t had time to form in the vacuum of space yet, so galaxies are all fire and no smoke. The only way to know for sure is to look at more galaxies, hopefully even further away than this one.” The team’s paper, “Spatial variations in aromatic hydrocarbon emission in a dust-rich galaxy,” can be viewed online along with related figures and acknowledgements. JWST is operated by the Space Telescope Science Institute under the management 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. About Research At Texas A&M University As one of the world’s leading research institutions, Texas A&M is at the forefront in making significant contributions to scholarship and discovery, including in science and technology. Research conducted at Texas A&M generated annual expenditures of more than $ billion in fiscal year 2021. Texas A&M ranked 14th in the most recent National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development Survey based on expenditures of more than $ billion in fiscal year 2020. Texas A&M’s research creates new knowledge that provides basic, fundamental and applied contributions resulting, in many cases, in economic benefits to the state, nation and world. To learn more, visit ResearchTexas A&M. The bright star at the center of NGC 3132, Southern Nebula Ring, while prominent when viewed by NASA's Webb Telescope in near-infrared light, plays a supporting role in sculpting the surrounding nebula. A second star, barely visible at lower left along one of the bright star's diffraction spikes, is the nebula's source. It has ejected at least eight layers of gas and dust over thousands of years. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI hide caption toggle caption NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI The bright star at the center of NGC 3132, Southern Nebula Ring, while prominent when viewed by NASA's Webb Telescope in near-infrared light, plays a supporting role in sculpting the surrounding nebula. A second star, barely visible at lower left along one of the bright star's diffraction spikes, is the nebula's source. It has ejected at least eight layers of gas and dust over thousands of years. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI The universe's splendor and breadth are on display like never before, thanks to a new batch of images that NASA released from the James Webb Space Telescope on Tuesday. The images from the new telescope are "really gorgeous," said NASA's Jane Rigby, the operations project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope. "That's something that has been true for every image we've gotten with Webb," she added. "We can't take blank sky [images]. Everywhere we look, there's galaxies everywhere." The images reflect five areas of space that researchers agreed to target the exoplanet WASP-96 b; the Southern Ring Nebula; the Carina Nebula; Stephan's Quintet five galaxies in the constellation Pegasus; and the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723. A nursery for the stars One of the most eye-popping images released on Tuesday depicts what looks to be cosmic cliffs, valleys and mountains — albeit with mountains that stretch to seven light-years in height. What looks much like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera NIRCam on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals previously obscured areas of star birth. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI hide caption toggle caption NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI What looks much like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera NIRCam on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals previously obscured areas of star birth. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI The image captures part of a "stellar nursery called NGC 3324 at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula," NASA said. It's roughly 7,600 light-years from Earth. "The blistering, ultraviolet radiation from the young stars is sculpting the nebula's wall by slowly eroding it away," the agency added. "Dramatic pillars tower above the glowing wall of gas, resisting this radiation. The 'steam' that appears to rise from the celestial 'mountains' is actually hot, ionized gas and hot dust streaming away from the nebula due to the relentless radiation." Galaxies from 'It's a Wonderful Life' stun scientists The tight galaxy group called Stephan's Quintet is a "laboratory" for scientists to study the powerful effects galaxies can exert on each other, thanks to new data from the Webb telescope. An enormous mosaic of Stephan's Quintet is the largest image to date from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, covering about one-fifth of the Moon's diameter. It contains over 150 million pixels and is constructed from almost 1,000 separate image files. The visual grouping of five galaxies was captured by Webb's Near-Infrared Camera NIRCam and Mid-Infrared Instrument MIRI. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI hide caption toggle caption NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI An enormous mosaic of Stephan's Quintet is the largest image to date from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, covering about one-fifth of the Moon's diameter. It contains over 150 million pixels and is constructed from almost 1,000 separate image files. The visual grouping of five galaxies was captured by Webb's Near-Infrared Camera NIRCam and Mid-Infrared Instrument MIRI. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI Researchers hope to learn more about how galaxies merge and interact, including triggering each other to form new stars, and how those processes might be impacted by supermassive black holes. The image casts the quintet in a new light, after they represented angels in Frank Capra's class film It's a Wonderful Life. "This enormous mosaic is Webb's largest image to date, covering about one-fifth of the Moon's diameter," NASA said. "It contains over 150 million pixels and is constructed from almost 1,000 separate image files." Catch a dying star Webb pulled the veil back on the second star in the Southern Ring Nebula, using mid-infrared wavelengths to capture it in extraordinary detail. "The star closely orbits its companion as it periodically ejects layers of gas and dust," NASA said. "Together, the swirling duo have created a fantastic landscape of asymmetrical shells." The new image shows the nebula from a nearly head-on view. But if we could see it from its edge, NASA says, "its three-dimensional shape would more clearly look like two bowls placed together at the bottom, opening away from one another with a large hole at the center." Webb delivers a portrait of a puffy giant "WASP-96 b is a giant planet outside our solar system, composed mainly of gas," NASA said. "The planet, located nearly 1,150 light-years from Earth, orbits its star every days. It has about half the mass of Jupiter, and its discovery was announced in 2014." The agency didn't release a photo but rather a spectrum analysis of WASP-96 b's atmosphere, garnered from Webb sighting the WASP-96 b as it transited in front of a star. A transmission spectrum made from a single observation using Webb's Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph NIRISS reveals atmospheric characteristics of the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-96 b. Illustration NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI hide caption toggle caption Illustration NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI A transmission spectrum made from a single observation using Webb's Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph NIRISS reveals atmospheric characteristics of the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-96 b. Illustration NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI A light curve from Webb's Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph NIRISS shows the change in brightness of light from the WASP-96 star system over time as the planet transits the star. A transit occurs when an orbiting planet moves between the star and the telescope, blocking some of the light from the star. Illustration NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI hide caption toggle caption Illustration NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI A light curve from Webb's Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph NIRISS shows the change in brightness of light from the WASP-96 star system over time as the planet transits the star. A transit occurs when an orbiting planet moves between the star and the telescope, blocking some of the light from the star. Illustration NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI The analysis found the "chemical fingerprint" of water in the atmosphere, said Knicole Colon, a research astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. A look at some of the universe's first galaxies ever The trove of images comes one day after a jaw-dropping first image was published by NASA and the White House, more than six months after the telescope was launched from Earth. That first image showed the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, known as Webb's First Deep Field. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb's First Deep Field, this composite image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail. The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared billion years ago. NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI hide caption toggle caption NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb's First Deep Field, this composite image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail. The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared billion years ago. NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI "If you held a grain of sand on the tip of your finger at arm's length, that is the part of the universe you are seeing — just one little speck of the universe," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said on Monday. But that speck contains multitudes. And thanks to the telescope's deep and sharp infrared images, Earthlings are getting a more detailed look at distant galaxies than was ever possible. That first image comprises thousands of galaxies, with even faint and diffuse structures visible for the first time. "This deep field, taken by Webb's Near-Infrared Camera NIRCam, is a composite made from images at different wavelengths, totaling hours – achieving depths at infrared wavelengths beyond the Hubble Space Telescope's deepest fields, which took weeks," NASA said. The stunning displays amount to a rich lesson in the history of the universe some of the galaxies are more than 13 billion years old, meaning they formed relatively soon after the Big Bang. For instance, the image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 amounts to a snapshot from billion years ago. Aside from gaping at stunning views like everyone else, researchers will use data from the Webb telescope "to learn more about the galaxies' masses, ages, histories, and compositions," according to NASA. The Webb Space Telescope is the culmination of an international program led by NASA. Its partners include the European Space Agency, or ESA, and the Canadian Space Agency. Astronomers using the Webb telescope discovered evidence of complex organic molecules similar to smoke or smog in the distant galaxy shown here. The galaxy, more than 12 billion light-years away, happens to line up almost perfectly with a second galaxy only three billion light-years away from our perspective on Earth. In this false-color Webb image, the foreground galaxy is shown in blue, while the background galaxy is in red. The organic molecules are highlighted in orange. J. Spilker/S. Doyle, NASA, ESA, CSA An international team of astronomers has detected complex organic molecules in the most distant galaxy to date using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The discovery of the molecules, which are familiar on Earth in smoke, soot and smog, demonstrates the power of Webb to help understand the complex chemistry that goes hand-in-hand with the birth of new stars even in the earliest periods of the universe’s history. At least for galaxies, the new findings cast doubt on the old adage that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Using the Webb telescope, Texas A&M University astronomer Justin Spilker and collaborators found the organic molecules in a galaxy more than 12 billion light-years away. Because of its extreme distance, the light detected by the astronomers began its journey when the universe was less than billion years old — about 10% of its current age. The galaxy was first discovered by the National Science Foundation’s South Pole Telescope in 2013 and has since been studied by many observatories, including the radio telescope ALMA and the Hubble Space Telescope. Spilker notes the discovery, reported this week in the journal Nature, was made possible through the combined powers of Webb and fate, with a little help from a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. Lensing, originally predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, happens when two galaxies are almost perfectly aligned from our point of view on Earth. The light from the background galaxy is stretched and magnified by the foreground galaxy into a ring-like shape, known as an Einstein ring. “By combining Webb’s amazing capabilities with a natural cosmic magnifying glass,’ we were able to see even more detail than we otherwise could,” said Spilker, an assistant professor in the Texas A&M Department of Physics and Astronomy and a member of the George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy. “That level of magnification is actually what made us interested in looking at this galaxy with Webb in the first place, because it really lets us see all the rich details of what makes up a galaxy in the early universe that we could never do otherwise.” The galaxy observed by Webb shows an Einstein ring caused by a phenomenon known as lensing, which occurs when two galaxies are almost perfectly aligned from our perspective on Earth. The gravity from the galaxy in the foreground causes the light from the background galaxy to be distorted and magnified, like looking through the stem of a wine glass. Because they are magnified, lensing allows astronomers to study very distant galaxies in more detail than otherwise possible. S. Doyle/J. Spilker The data from Webb found the telltale signature of large organic molecules akin to smog and smoke —building blocks of the same cancer-causing hydrocarbon emissions on Earth that are key contributors to atmospheric pollution. However, Spilker says the implications of galactic smoke signals are much less disastrous for their cosmic ecosystems. “These big molecules are actually pretty common in space,” Spilker explained. “Astronomers used to think they were a good sign that new stars were forming. Anywhere you saw these molecules, baby stars were also right there blazing away.” The new results from Webb show that this idea might not exactly ring true in the early universe, according to Spilker. “Thanks to the high-definition images from Webb, we found a lot of regions with smoke but no star formation, and others with new stars forming but no smoke,” Spilker added. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign graduate student Kedar Phadke, who led the technical development of the team’s Webb observations, noted that astronomers are using Webb to make connections across the vastness of space with unprecedented potential. “Discoveries like this are precisely what Webb was built to do understand the earliest stages of the universe in new and exciting ways,” Phadke said. “It’s amazing that we can identify molecules billions of light-years away that we’re familiar with here on Earth, even if they show up in ways we don’t like, like smog and smoke. It’s also a powerful statement about the amazing capabilities of Webb that we’ve never had before.” The team’s leadership also includes NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center astronomer Jane Rigby, University of Illinois professor Joaquin Vieira and dozens of astronomers around the world. The discovery is Webb’s first detection of complex molecules in the early universe — a milestone moment that Spilker sees as a beginning rather than an end. “These are early days for the Webb Telescope, so astronomers are excited to see all the new things it can do for us,” Spilker said. “Detecting smoke in a galaxy early in the history of the universe? Webb makes this look easy. Now that we’ve shown this is possible for the first time, we’re looking forward to trying to understand whether it’s really true that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Maybe we’ll even be able to find galaxies that are so young that complex molecules like these haven’t had time to form in the vacuum of space yet, so galaxies are all fire and no smoke. The only way to know for sure is to look at more galaxies, hopefully even further away than this one.” The team’s paper, “Spatial variations in aromatic hydrocarbon emission in a dust-rich galaxy,” can be viewed online along with related figures and acknowledgements. JWST is operated by the Space Telescope Science Institute under the management 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. Astronomers have detected organic molecules in the most distant galaxy to date using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, demonstrating the power of Webb to help understand the complex chemistry that goes hand-in-hand with the birth of new stars even in the earliest periods of the universe’s history. The molecules — which are found on Earth in smoke, soot and smog — are in a galaxy that formed when the universe was less than billion years old, about 10 per cent of its current discovery is significant because it may help scientists understand how stars formed in the earliest stages of the universe and casts doubt on a long-held belief that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. The international team, including Dalhousie University astrophysicist Scott Chapman and Texas A&M University astronomer Justin Spilker, found the organic molecules polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or PAH in a galaxy more than 12 billion light years away. The galaxy was first discovered by the National Science Foundation’s South Pole Telescope in 2013. "This galaxy is one of the most luminous in the universe, forming stars at a very high rate — 100s of times more rapidly than our own Milky Way. We were hoping to get new insights in the chemistry of the gas supply for forming stars to understand how galaxies like this are forming stars so rapidly," says Dr. Chapman, pictured above right. "Thanks to the high-definition images from Webb, we found a lot of regions with PAH or 'smoke,' but no star formation, and others with new stars forming but no smoke. This is very unlike local galaxies — where if there's PAH, there are stars forming." Einstein ring The discovery, published in the journal Nature, was made possible through the combined powers of Webb and fate, with a little help from a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. Lensing, originally predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, happens when two galaxies are almost perfectly aligned from our point of view on Earth. The light from the background galaxy is stretched and magnified by the foreground galaxy into a ring-like shape, known as an Einstein ring. "We were amongst the very first users of the new James Webb Space Telescope. Its capabilities allowed us to detect the molecule in a galaxy that is extremely far away from us, and thus seen in the very early universe, not long after the Big Bang," says Dr. Chapman. "Previously, this molecule had only been detectable in relatively nearby galaxies." The data from Webb found the telltale signature of large organic molecules akin to smog and smoke — building blocks of the same cancer-causing hydrocarbon emissions on Earth that are key contributors to atmospheric pollution. However, the implications of galactic smoke signals are much less disastrous for their cosmic ecosystems and are quite common in space. It was thought their presence was a sign that new stars were being created. The new results from Webb show that this idea might not exactly ring true in the early universe. “Thanks to the high-definition images from Webb, we found a lot of regions with smoke but no star formation, and others with new stars forming but no smoke,” said Dr. Spilker, an assistant professor in the Texas A&M Department of Physics and Astronomy. A figure included in the Nature study. Nature The power of the Webb Discoveries like this are precisely what Webb was built to do understand the earliest stages of the universe in new and exciting ways. "This was incredibly exciting to get some of the first observations coming off the new JWST. And extra exciting to see how powerful the telescope is, and how well it works," says Dr. Chapman. The team, which included dozens of astronomers from around the world, says the discovery is Webb’s first detection of complex molecules in the early universe – a milestone moment seen as a beginning rather than an end. "Detecting smoke in a galaxy early in the history of the universe? Webb makes this look easy. Now that we’ve shown this is possible for the first time, we’re looking forward to trying to understand whether it’s really true that where there’s smoke, there’s fire," says Dr. Spilker. "The only way to know for sure is to look at more galaxies, hopefully even further away than this one." JWST is operated by the Space Telescope Science Institute under the management of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. Recommended reading When galaxies collide

the telescope will photograph distant galaxies