Hubble's surprise discovery in early universe paves way for Webb Telescope

The team was looking for answers about when and how the first stars and galaxies in the universe were formed after the Big Bang

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Thursday said that the latest results from the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that the formation of the first stars and galaxies in the early universe took place sooner than previously thought. The new result limits the probe area of the Hubble, paving way for the James Webb Telescope to further the research about the origin of the universe. 

A team of European astronomers found no evidence of the first generation of stars, known as Population-III stars, as far back as when the universe was just 500 million years old. The team was looking for answers about when and how the first stars and galaxies in the universe were formed using the deep imaging observations of the Hubble that allows astronomers to view the universe back to within 500 million years of the big bang.

Led by Rachana Bhatawdekar of the European Space Agency, the team of astronomers studied the first generation of stars in the early universe. 

A European team of astronomers have found no evidence of the first generation of stars, known as Population III stars, when the universe was less than 1 billion years old. This artist's impression presents the early universe. (Source: NASA)

Known as the Population-III stars, these stars were formed from the primordial material that emerged from the big bang. Bhatawdekar and her team probed the early universe from about 500 million to 1 billion years after the big bang by studying the cluster MACS J0416 and its parallel field with the Hubble Space Telescope with supporting data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the ground-based Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory. "We found no evidence of these first-generation Population III stars in this cosmic time interval," said Bhatawdekar of the new results. 

Hubble Frontier Fields program deployed for study

The result was achieved using the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys, as part of the Hubble Frontier Fields program. This program, which observed six distant galaxy clusters from 2012 to 2017, produced the deepest observations ever made of galaxy clusters and the galaxies located behind them which were magnified by the gravitational lensing effect, thereby revealing galaxies 10 to 100 times fainter than any previously observed. 

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the galaxy cluster MACS J0416. This is one of six galaxy clusters being studied by the Hubble Frontier Fields program. Source: NASA)

"The masses of foreground galaxy clusters are large enough to bend and magnify the light from the more distant objects behind them. This allows Hubble to use these cosmic magnifying glasses to study objects that are beyond its nominal operational capabilities," NASA said.

Bhatawdekar and her team developed a new technique that removes the light from the bright foreground galaxies that constitute these gravitational lenses. This allowed them to discover galaxies with lower masses than ever previously observed with Hubble, at a distance corresponding to when the universe was less than a billion years old. 

The Hubble Space Telescope being deployed from the cargo bay of space shuttle Discovery. (Source: NASA)

"These results have profound astrophysical consequences as they show that galaxies must have formed much earlier than we thought," said Bhatawdekar. "This also strongly supports the idea that low-mass/faint galaxies in the early universe are responsible for reionization."

New horizons to explore for James Webb Telescope

The results also suggest that the earliest formation of stars and galaxies occurred much earlier than can be probed with the Hubble Space Telescope. This leaves an exciting area of further research for the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope — to study the universe's earliest galaxies.

The James Webb Telescope will be a global premier space science observatory when it launches in 2021. (Source: NASA)

The James Webb Space Telescope, referred to as JWST or Webb, is an orbiting infrared observatory that will complement and extend the discoveries of the Hubble, with longer wavelength coverage and greatly improved sensitivity. The longer wavelengths enable Webb to look much closer to the beginning of time and to hunt for the unobserved formation of the first galaxies. 

It will be a global premier space science observatory when it launches in 2021 as an international program led by NASA with the ESA and the Canadian Space Agency.

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