The Farthest Known Organic Substances in the Universe

2023-06-07 12:45:05

An international team of astronomers has detected complex organic molecules in the most distant galaxy known to date, using the James Webb Space Telescope.

That galaxy is located more than 12 billion light-years away.

The discovery of these molecules, known on Earth for their prominent presence in common combustion smoke, soot, and smog, demonstrates Webb’s ability to peer into the chemistry of the distant cosmos, even in the earliest periods of the history of the universe.

The finding is the work of Justin Spilker’s team, from Texas A&M University in the United States.

Due to its extreme distance, the light detected by astronomers began its journey when the universe was less than 1.5 billion years old, about 10% of its current age. This therefore reveals the level of chemical complexity that already existed at that time.

The galaxy was discovered by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) South Pole Telescope in 2013 and has since been studied by numerous observatories, including the ALMA radio telescope array and the Hubble Space Telescope.

The galaxy in which organic compounds have been detected, seen through the James Webb Space Telescope and with the help of the phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. In this false-color reprocessed image, the foreground galaxy, which acts as a “gravitational lens,” is shown in blue, while the background galaxy, whose light has been amplified by the lens, is shown in red. Organic substances are highlighted in orange. Gravitational lensing magnifies but also introduces a distortion, which gives the magnified astronomical object a ring shape. (Image: J. Spilker / S. Doyle / NASA / ESA / CSA)

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the result of an international collaboration led by NASA, ESA and CSA, respectively the US, European and Canadian space agencies.

The study is titled “Spatial variations in aromatic hydrocarbon emission in a dust-rich galaxy”. And it has been published in the academic journal Nature. (Fountain: NCYT de Amazings)