Webb Space Telescope detects universe's most distant complex organic
molecules

Date:
June 5, 2023
Source:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, News Bureau
Summary:
Researchers have detected complex organic molecules in a galaxy more
than 12 billion light-years away from Earth -- the most distant
galaxy in which these molecules are now known to exist. Thanks
to the capabilities of the recently launched James Webb Space
Telescope and careful analyses from the research team, a new study
lends critical insight into the complex chemical interactions that
occur in the first galaxies in the early universe.


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FULL STORY ========================================================================== Researchers have detected complex organic molecules in a galaxy more
than 12 billion light-years away from Earth -- the most distant galaxy in
which these molecules are now known to exist. Thanks to the capabilities
of the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope and careful analyses
from the research team, a new study lends critical insight into the
complex chemical interactions that occur in the first galaxies in the
early universe.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign astronomy and physics professor
Joaquin Vieira and graduate student Kedar Phadke collaborated with
researchers at Texas A&M University and an international team of
scientists to differentiate between infrared signals generated by some
of the more massive and larger dust grains in the galaxy and those of
the newly observed hydrocarbon molecules.

The study findings are published in the journal Nature.

"This project started when I was in graduate school studying
hard-to-detect, very distant galaxies obscured by dust," Vieira
said. "Dust grains absorb and re-emit about half of the stellar radiation produced in the universe, making infrared light from distant objects
extremely faint or undetectable through ground-based telescopes."
In the new study, the JWST received a boost from what the researchers
call "nature's magnifying glass" -- a phenomenon called gravitational
lensing. "This magnification happens when two galaxies are almost
perfectly aligned from the Earth's point of view, and light from the
background galaxy is warped and magnified by the foreground galaxy into
a ring-like shape, known as an Einstein ring," Vieira said.

The team focused the JWST on SPT0418-47 -- an object discovered using
the National Science Foundation's South Pole Telescope and previously identified as a dust-obscured galaxy magnified by a factor of about 30
to 35 by gravitational lensing. SPT0418-47 is 12 billion light-years
from Earth, corresponding to a time when the universe was less than 1.5
billion years old, or about 10% of its current age, the researchers said.

"Before having access to the combined power of gravitational lensing
and the JWST, we could neither see nor spatially resolve the actual
background galaxy through all of the dust," Vieira said.

Spectroscopic data from the JWST suggest that the obscured interstellar
gas in SPT0418-47 is enriched in heavy elements, indicating that
generations of stars have already lived and died. The specific compound
the researchers detected is a type of molecule called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, or PAH. On Earth, these molecules can be found in the exhaust produced by combustion engines or forest fires. Being comprised of carbon chains, these organic molecules are considered the basic building blocks
for the earliest forms of life, the researchers said.

"What this research is telling us right now -- and we are still learning
-- is that we can see all of the regions where these smaller dust grains
are located -- regions that we could never see before the JWST," Phadke
said. "The new spectroscopic data lets us observe the galaxy's atomic
and molecular composition, providing very important insights into the
formation of galaxies, their lifecycle and how they evolve." "We didn't
expect this," Vieira said. "Detecting these complex organic molecules at
such a vast distance is game-changing regarding future observations. This
work is just the first step, and we're just now learning how to use it and learn its capabilities. We are very excited to see how this plays out."
"It's extremely cool that galaxies I discovered while writing my thesis
would one day be observed by the JWST," Vieira said. "I am grateful to
the U.S.

taxpayers, the NSF and NASA for funding and supporting both the SPT and
the JWST. Without these instruments, this discovery could have never
been made." Vieira also is the director of the Center for AstroPhysical Surveys, funded by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
at Illinois. Phadke is a CAPS graduate fellow.

The Space Telescope Science Institute operates the JWST under the
management of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy,
Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-03127.

* RELATED_TOPICS
o Space_&_Time
# Galaxies # Astrophysics # Astronomy # Space_Telescopes #
Cosmology # NASA # Space_Exploration # Extrasolar_Planets
* RELATED_TERMS
o Spitzer_space_telescope o Galaxy o Milky_Way o
Andromeda_Galaxy o Galaxy_formation_and_evolution o
Planetary_nebula o Hubble_Deep_Field o Globular_cluster

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Illinois_at_Urbana-Champaign,_News_Bureau.

Original written by Lois Yoksoulian. Note: Content may be edited for
style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Justin S. Spilker, Kedar A. Phadke, Manuel Aravena, Melanie
Archipley,
Matthew B. Bayliss, Jack E. Birkin, Matthieu Be'thermin, James
Burgoyne, Jared Cathey, Scott C. Chapman, Haakon Dahle, Anthony
H. Gonzalez, Gayathri Gururajan, Christopher C. Hayward, Yashar
D. Hezaveh, Ryley Hill, Taylor A. Hutchison, Keunho J. Kim, Seonwoo
Kim, David Law, Ronan Legin, Matthew A. Malkan, Daniel P. Marrone,
Eric J. Murphy, Desika Narayanan, Alex Navarre, Grace M. Olivier,
Jeffrey A. Rich, Jane R.

Rigby, Cassie Reuter, James E. Rhoads, Keren Sharon, J. D. T. Smith,
Manuel Solimano, Nikolaus Sulzenauer, Joaquin D. Vieira, David
Vizgan, Axel Weiss, Katherine E. Whitaker. Spatial variations in
aromatic hydrocarbon emission in a dust-rich galaxy. Nature, 2023;
DOI: 10.1038/ s41586-023-05998-6 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/06/230605181233.htm

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