![]() ![]() He also contributed to the interpretation of the measurements. ![]() de la Vega helped the research team by estimating the redshift and properties of ceers-2112. ![]() The discovery of ceers-2112 paves the way for more bars to be discovered in the young universe."ĭr. This is important because galaxies in the distant past were smaller than they are now, which makes finding bars harder. Second, the discovery of ceers-2112 demonstrates that structures like bars can be detected when the universe was very young. "These models may need to adjust how much dark matter makes up galaxies in the early universe, as dark matter is believed to affect the rate at which bars form. "First, theoretical models of galaxy formation and evolution will need to account for some galaxies becoming stable enough to host bars very early in the universe's history," de la Vega said. The discovery of ceers-2112 is expected to change at least two aspects of astronomy. It was thought that bars could not form or last long in galaxies in the early universe." "In the past, when the universe was very young, galaxies were unstable and chaotic. "In such galaxies, bars can form spontaneously due to instabilities in the spiral structure or gravitational effects from a neighboring galaxy," de la Vega said. "The discovery of ceers-2112 shows that it can happen in only a fraction of that time, in about one billion years or less," de la Vega said.Īccording to him, galactic bars are thought to form in spiral galaxies with stars that rotate in an ordered fashion, the way they do in the Milky Way. "The bar in ceers-2112 suggests that galaxies matured and became ordered much faster than we previously thought, which means some aspects of our theories of galaxy formation and evolution need revision."Īstronomers' previous understanding of galaxy evolution was that it took several billion years for galaxies to become ordered enough to develop bars. "Nearly all bars are found in spiral galaxies," said de la Vega, who joined UCR last year after receiving his doctoral degree in astronomy at Johns Hopkins University. It is possible to find bars in non-spiral galaxies, he said, but they are very rare. Galactic bars resemble bars in our everyday lives, such as a candy bar. De la Vega explained that a galactic bar is a structure made of stars within galaxies. This is surprising because galaxies were much more chaotic in the early universe and very few had similar structures to the Milky Way."Ĭeers-2112 has a bar in its center. "Finding ceers-2112 shows that galaxies in the early universe could be as ordered as the Milky Way. "This galaxy, named ceers-2112, formed soon after the Big Bang," said co-author de la Vega, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. The research, published in Nature this week, was led by scientists at the Centro de Astrobiología in Spain. In its entirety, it is estimated that M74 is home to about 100 billion stars, making it slightly smaller than our Milky Way.Until now it was believed that barred spiral galaxies like the Milky Way could not be observed before the universe, estimated to be 13.8 billion years old, reached half of its current age. It is the dominant member of a small group of about half a dozen galaxies, the M74 galaxy group. M74 is located roughly 32 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Pisces, the Fish. Tracing along the spiral arms are winding dust lanes that also begin very near the galaxy’s nucleus and follow along the length of the spiral arms. These regions of star formation show an excess of light at ultraviolet wavelengths. Its perfectly symmetrical spiral arms emanate from the central nucleus and are dotted with clusters of young blue stars and glowing pink regions of ionized hydrogen (hydrogen atoms that have lost their electrons). Messier 74, also called NGC 628, is a stunning example of a grand-design spiral galaxy that is viewed by Earth observers nearly face-on. Bright knots of glowing gas light up the spiral arms, indicating a rich environment of star formation. Resembling festive lights on a holiday wreath, this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the nearby spiral galaxy M74 is an iconic reminder of the impending season. ![]()
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