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

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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.

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Computer models of gas clouds that are so heated by hot and massive stars to the point that their stars outshine their cosmic birthplaces were "nearly a perfect match to Webb's observations," according to the release. The newfound galaxy appears to be in the midst of a star-birth sprint, and its reservoirs of gas and dust are being pummeled with countless photons of light. It is this light the JWST has managed to see.

The telescope's data about GS-NDG-9422 suggests its stars "must be much hotter and more massive than what we see in the local universe," said study co-author Harley Katz, who is an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago. "Makes sense because the early universe was a very different environment." 

The stars' temperatures exceed 140,000 degrees Fahrenheit (80,000 degrees Celsius), which is about twice the expected temperature for typical hot and massive stars, the new study found.

Astronomers are relying on the JWST's infrared-penetrating capabilities to piece together the earliest years of our universe, when the cosmos flaunted a surprising number of galaxies that had grown very large very quickly and also were hotspots for star formation. 

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Figuring out just how rare oddball galaxies like GS-NDG-9422 were at the time would allow astronomers to refine galaxy evolution models.

"It's a very exciting time, to be able to use the Webb telescope to explore this time in the universe that was once inaccessible," Cameron said in the statement. "We are just at the beginning of new discoveries and understanding."

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Sharmila Kuthunur
Sharmila Kuthunur
Space.com contributor

Sharmila Kuthunur is a Seattle-based science journalist covering astronomy, astrophysics and space exploration. Follow her on X @skuthunur.

4 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Classical Motion
    All galaxies out shine their stars.
    Reply
  • Unclear Engineer
    So, I am getting the impression that this article is talking about a relative brightness within a specific band of light frequencies in the infrared part of the spectrum. It would not make sense for the total emissions from gas clouds being heated by extremely hot stars to somehow emit more total energy than the stars themselves.

    So, I suggest that this article needs some more explanatory text. Just focusing on the "wow factor" shortchanges the science.
    Reply
  • Torbjorn Larsson
    Unclear Engineer said:
    So, I am getting the impression that this article is talking about a relative brightness within a specific band of light frequencies in the infrared part of the spectrum. It would not make sense for the total emissions from gas clouds being heated by extremely hot stars to somehow emit more total energy than the stars themselves.

    So, I suggest that this article needs some more explanatory text. Just focusing on the "wow factor" shortchanges the science.
    From https://scitechdaily.com/webbs-unprecedented-discovery-potential-missing-link-to-first-stars-in-the-universe/:
    This comparison of the data collected by the James Webb Space Telescope with a computer model prediction highlights the same sloping feature that first caught the eye of astronomer Alex Cameron, lead researcher of a new study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
    The bottom graphic compares what astronomers would expect to see in a “typical” galaxy, with its light coming predominantly from stars (white line), with a theoretical model of light coming from hot nebular gas, outshining stars (yellow line). The model comes from Cameron’s collaborator, theoretical astronomer Harley Katz, and together they realized the similarities between the model and Cameron’s Webb observations of galaxy GS-NDG-9422 (top). The unusual downturn of the galaxy’s spectrum, leading to an exaggerated spike in neutral hydrogen, is nearly a perfect match to Katz’s model of a spectrum dominated by super-heated gas.
    While this is still only one example, Cameron, Katz, and their fellow researchers think the conclusion that galaxy GS-NDG-9422 is dominated by nebular light, rather than starlight, is their strongest jumping-off point for future investigation. They are looking for more galaxies around the same one-billion-year mark in the universe’s history, hoping to find more examples of a new type of galaxy, a missing link in the history of galactic evolution.
    Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Leah Hustak (STScI)
    Reply
  • Unclear Engineer
    Thanks for posting the spectra images for the observations and the models. I'll read through the linked article to try to better understand the logic.
    Reply