Posted on 07/22/2022 11:19:20 AM PDT by Red Badger
If confirmed, it might be the most distant galaxy ever, but it's not the oldest. That's an important distinction.
an amorphous red blob against the void of space
Are we looking at the oldest galaxy ever found? No, but maybe, but yes? T. Treu/GLASS-JWST/NASA/CSA/ESA/STScI
If you've been following the astronomy community on Twitter or, perhaps, Captain America himself, you've likely come across a story about the James Webb Space Telescope's latest find: the "oldest galaxy we've ever seen."
This is exactly what we were promised from the James Webb Space Telescope. Only a week ago, the world's collective jaw hit the floor when the first stunning images were revealed. Now the telescope is getting a proper start on its myriad science programs, but researchers have already had access to a ton of data collected during JWST's commissioning phase and released early to researchers across the globe.
That's how we ended up finding "the oldest galaxy" so quickly. Scientists pored through a particular dataset looking for far-off galaxies and found a candidate they've dubbed GL-z13, a call-back to the current confirmed record holder, GNz11.
There's more work to be done to confirm GL-z13 is actually the new record holder – some of which will require more time pointing Webb at the galaxy – but even so, several publications have already crowned this galaxy the universal champion.
So how did we get here? And is this "the oldest galaxy" ever seen?
Over the last 24 hours, two different research groups uploaded papers (one here, the other here) to arXiv detailing their search for very distant galaxies in the James Webb data.
The website "arXiv" (I pronounce it "ark-siv" because I am a heathen, but others assure me it's pronounced "archive") is a preprint repository, a place for scientists to drop studies so they can be quickly disseminated to peers. It's a great place to quickly get new research out into the world, particularly for astronomy and astrophysics, with the caveat being that the findings have not typically been peer-reviewed – an important checkpoint for validating the study and its methods.
Hubble and James Webb Space Telescope Images Compared: See the Difference James Webb golden mirrors shine inside a work facility. Hubble looks like a shiny cylinder against the dark of space with the curve of Earth below. A spray of galaxies and stars looking small against the darkness of space.+9 more See all photos I don't want to poop the party for GL-z13, but I do want to exercise just a teensy bit of caution. In communicating findings with such certainty, there's potential for readers to lose trust in scientists if it turns out GL-z13 is something else entirely. Several astronomers I spoke with believe the data is quite compelling and the galaxy likely does reside a long (loooong) way away, but until there's confirmation, GL-z13 can't take the title of "oldest galaxy."
And to some, even that title itself is a bit misleading.
You see, GL-Z13 isn't really "the oldest galaxy ever" – it comes from a time when the universe was barely 330 million years old. The light from that galaxy? Well, yes, it's super old. It has traveled a long time to reach the JWST. But the galaxy itself, if confirmed, is probably the youngest galaxy ever seen, according to Nick Seymour, an astrophysicist at Curtin University in Western Australia.
"At 330 million years after the Big Bang, it can't be more than 100 million years old at best," Seymour said. "Hence, this really is a baby galaxy at the dawn of time."
Getting excited about record-breaking space feats is a given. As a science journalist, I do this practically every day. But in reporting on new discoveries, it's important to convey uncertainty. In headlines, in social posts, in the way we discuss scientific progress. We have to set the correct benchmark and leave in that uncertainty. The tale of GL-z13 is a wonderful one, and it's only just beginning. Astronomers now have to study it a whole lot more to make sure the distances are correct.
"There's obviously a lot of follow-up work to do, but it really is sort of a glimpse of where things are going with James Webb," said Michael Brown, an astrophysicist at Monash University.
It was only in April, before Webb was scouring the cosmos, that astronomers announced they may have discovered the most distant galaxy yet, HD1. That galaxy is believed to be from a time when the universe was about 330 million years old. Brown noted at the time it was worth being cautious about handing over the title to HD1 because the data might point to a galaxy billions of light-years closer to Earth. To confirm its distance, just like with GL-z13, we need more observations.
Know what telescope might be able to do that? You guessed it: JWST.
We're fascinated by records being broken, but perhaps the most interesting point from all of this is that if Webb works as well as expected (and it seems to work better than even scientists dreamed), the title for "oldest galaxy" will change hands as much as WWE's 24/7 Hardcore Championship. We'll be finding new galaxies from even further back in time at a pace we couldn't dream of.
If that's the case, I expect it won't be too long before the record tumbles.
Updated July 22: Headline changed, added context to oldest galaxy paragraph.
First published on July 20, 2022 at 9:30 p.m. PT.
… but it may no longer be there
look behind you…
Speed, Distance, Time and Relativity all influence the the Testing Experiment, and it takes a while to study them in their relation to the Object in question.
In the meantime someone may use a possibly incorrect term in describing that Object.
How do we know that this “red blob” self-identifies as a galaxy?
Fun fact: Not only are you at the exact center of the universe (Sorry, Galileo, you were right about Aristotle being wrong, but Cardinal Nicolas Di Cusa was closer), but you are at the very oldest part of the universe. It’s a consequence of relativity. Since the entire world is traveling away from you at a speed proportional to its distance from you, the further you imagine being from where you are now, the more the effects of traveling quickly have prevented the matter at that place from aging.
“Ah,” you say, “but if I went there FASTER than the speed of light!” and I finish off your sentence, “you’d be going backwards in time to when the universe was younger!” “But what if I just materialized there?” Congratulations! You’d be at an older part of the universe... but only because from your perspective, our part of the universe would be at some point in our distant past.
But what if I kept some sort of magic link where Earthperson and I were billions of light years apart? Each of you would perceive the link as coming from the distant future, at a point that was rushing away from the other so quickly that the age of that distant end would be surpassed due to its aging less quickly due to it flying away so quickly.
It always seems like saying you’re at the oldest, most central point of the universe is just some trick that could be conquered by some impossible magic.... but it’s always another impossibly magic task to find somewhere in the universe that’s older.
The Webb telescope sensors record data which is analyzed in computers programmed with software that feature alogarithims written by scientists with preconceived notions. the images ultimately seen are not actual photos but computer generated images.
The oldest galaxy is called Pelosi.
but the galaxy itself, at this very moment in time, is one of the oldest.
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Unless it has already been destroyed and is no longer a galaxy. Could have blown up billions of years ago and we would not know that for a long long time. Saying it is the youngest gets around that corundum.
Yawn, practical impact and relativity to my life could not be less.
Nice for some folk that they get to play with billions of dollars in toys.
there’s potential for readers to lose trust in scientists
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Who the hell is going to trust ‘scientist’? You want data to prove a point? hire a scientist. He/She will manufacture, create, fudge, tweak, outright lie, or hide all the ‘correct’ data you want.
Trust a scientist just because they are a scientists? let’s see: Covid 19, global warming, FDA, CDC, WHO, etc.
That ship has sailed
We’ve been told that, because the universe is expanding, the farther out we look, the older the objects are. It’s wwrong. If the universe started with the big bang then everything we see is the same age, but with one caveat. Because light takes time to get here the farther away an observed object is, the younger the object appears.
The nearest objects are the oldest ones we can observe, and we don’t need fancier telescopes for doing that.
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Photos, photography and film went the way of the pay phone...
LoL........Aaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnd nobody cares!
True dat, and my bad. Many "Stars" we see have long since gone Supernova.
I'm pretty sure it's no longer there because they don't know where these distant galaxies ARE, they know where they WERE. The speed of light is fast, but it's not infinite.
The oldest galaxy is in the Japanese quadrant....
So what do you think you are really seeing? You are seeing constructed images made by people using software programs. Those images may or may not conform what to what a human eye may perceive if it had a chance to witness the real images directly. Of course the manufactured images are stunning and beautiful and sure to generate more funding.
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