'That's weird': James Webb Space Telescope spies a strange galaxy outshining its stars

By Sharmila Kuthunur published 19 hours ago

The newfound galaxy, GS-NDG-9422, "will help us understand how the cosmic story began."



A large field of stars and galaxies with one shown in a small white squre, then magnified in a larger white square near the center.
An oddball galaxy in the early universe shines so brightly it outshines its stars. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Alex Cameron (Oxford))

In a pocket of the universe teeming with galaxies, the James Webb Space Telescope has zeroed in on one blazing so brightly it outshines its stars.

The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted the galaxy named GS-NDG-9422 — a realm that existed about one billion years after the Big Bang, and indeed one that may provide the missing link of galaxy evolution between the universe's first stars and well-structured galaxies.

GS-NDG-9422 "will help us understand how the cosmic story began," Alex Cameron, an observational astronomer at the University of Oxford in the U.K., said in a recent news release. "My first thought in looking at the galaxy's spectrum was, 'that's weird,' which is exactly what the Webb telescope was designed to reveal."

The newfound galaxy is inconspicuous — except for its unique light signature, which includes patterns astronomers haven't seen before. Those features, which contribute to the light seen by Webb, are best explained by the galaxy's superheated gas, rather than its stars, according to a paper published by Cameron and his colleagues in June in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

More:
https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-weird-galaxy-brighter-than-its-own-stars