Noticed MEGA galaxies have numerous variation in colour and morphology, giving perception into the galaxies’ ages, filth content material and megastar formation. Credit score: NASA/JWST/Backhaus
A brand new College of Kansas survey of far-off galaxies the use of the James Webb Area Telescope unearths never-before-seen megastar formation and black hollow enlargement at “cosmic midday”—a mysterious epoch 2–3 billion years after the Large Bang, when galaxies just like the Milky Approach underwent an intense enlargement spurt.
The result of the MIRI EGS Galaxy and AGN (MEGA) survey seem at the arXiv preprint server and shortly might be revealed by means of The Astrophysical Magazine.
Consistent with KU researchers, galaxies have been churning out new stars so intensely all through cosmic midday that each one galaxies as of late owe part their stellar mass to stars cast all through this epoch. The KU staff is looking for public participation in figuring out the shapes of galaxies and on the lookout for galaxy mergers. Any member of the general public can classify galaxies within the Cosmic Collisions Zooniverse challenge.
“Our function with this challenge is to habits the biggest JWST survey within the mid-infrared throughout a couple of bandwidths,” mentioned primary investigator Allison Kirkpatrick, affiliate professor of physics & astronomy at KU, who led the survey paintings.
“We’re the premier mid-infrared survey so far. The mid-infrared is the place filth emits, so we are having a look at dust-obscured galaxies. Mud hides numerous issues, and we wish to peer at the back of the filth. We wish to know the way those galaxies are forming stars, what number of stars they are forming and particularly how the black holes at their facilities are rising.”
The usage of the JWST’s much-enhanced energy within the mid-infrared spectrum, the KU-led staff gazed via this cosmic filth to look at galaxies sufficiently some distance away that arriving gentle had left their stars all through cosmic midday, 10 billion years previously. They sought to be informed extra about galaxies with energetic galactic nuclei (or, supermassive black holes which are impulsively rising in measurement) in a galaxy-rich deep box close to the Ursa Main constellation, thought to be a “blank window” for extragalactic statement known as the “Prolonged Groth Strip.”
“The Prolonged Groth Strip is a area of the sky that has now turn out to be one of the vital premier JWST fields,” Kirkpatrick mentioned. “I used to be at the proposal that gained the first actual knowledge from the James Webb Area Telescope. This survey is known as CEERS—Cosmic Evolution Early Liberate Science. We were given the primary photographs from JWST, they usually have been of the Prolonged Groth Strip. Inside this area, we are ready to look about 10,000 galaxies—even supposing the world is handiest kind of the diameter of the moon.”
The overall mosaic of MIRI EGS Galaxy and AGN (MEGA) survey the use of all 4 in their noticed MIRI filters: F770W, F1000W, F1500W and F2100W. Staring at mid-infrared gentle of galaxies with the next solution will convey new know the way the universe round us grew. Credit score: NASA/JWST/Backhaus
Lead writer Bren Backhaus, postdoctoral researcher in physics & astronomy at KU, pored throughout the spectacular quantity of recent JWST knowledge and labored with uncooked photographs to supply usable medical photographs and data helpful to the astronomy neighborhood.
“In principle, a galaxy may display up in a single symbol and now not any other as a result of we are the use of other filters,” Backhaus mentioned. “It is like taking footage the use of handiest purple, blue or inexperienced gentle—which sooner or later create very beautiful photographs. However for the reason that telescope is shifting somewhat, the photographs are a bit out of body with every different. Step one is just receiving the photographs. Your next step comes to correcting for recognized problems with the telescope. As an example, there is a recognized scratch that looks in each and every symbol, and there are lifeless pixels. The primary process is to mend or a minimum of inform the tool to forget about the ones pixels.”
Subsequent, Backhaus aligned the separate photographs, giving them a reference for a way they must overlap. Her ultimate step used to be to mix the photographs correctly relative to each other.
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“I used to be doing all of that to create our science-ready photographs,” Backhaus mentioned. “Then, my subsequent function used to be to make a catalog—discovering a measurable quantity of sunshine and recording how a lot gentle is coming in via a given filter out to give a boost to our better e-newsletter. That used to be my number one paintings with the knowledge, and I used to be truly excited as a result of I had by no means labored with photometry knowledge earlier than. It truly expanded my talent set, and I were given to look gorgeous galaxies earlier than somebody else.”
In the past, the KU-led collaboration has logged 67 hours commanding the JWST. The challenge not too long ago gained roughly 30 extra hours of telescope time. Knowledge might be used at KU for analysis and coaching for a time earlier than being made to be had publicly.
“That is the biggest quantity of JWST knowledge now we have been ready to convey to KU with a primary investigator right here, because of this KU scholars have unique use of this information for now,” Kirkpatrick mentioned. “It is not public but. The best way telescope time works is that as a result of such a lot effort is going into writing an offer, you might be given a yr of unique use of the knowledge. Then it will get launched right into a public database, however handiest as uncooked knowledge. Someone can get right of entry to it, however they might need to do their very own processing, which has taken months in our case.”
In the interim, handiest KU physics and astronomy researchers can get right of entry to “this gorgeous dataset,” Kirkpatrick mentioned.
Ongoing analysis contains discovering the galaxies which may be the ancestors of Milky Approach-like galaxies as of late—visual for the primary time within the mid-IR because of MEGA, measuring how impulsively galaxies shape stars and develop their black holes, and having a look at how galaxies alternate their look because of mergers through the years. All of those tasks give researchers an unparalleled take a look at how galaxies just like the Milky Approach have “grown up.”
“All my scholars are running on it,” she mentioned. “It is a truly distinctive factor for KU at this time.”
Additional info:
Bren E. Backhaus et al, MEGA Mass Meeting with JWST: The MIRI EGS Galaxy and AGN Survey, arXiv (2025). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2503.19078
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Galaxies at ‘cosmic midday’: Analysis provides deep dive into universe’s wild enlargement spurt (2025, April 22)
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