James Webb Space Telescope Discovery

Webb identifies the earliest strands of the cosmic web

Galaxies are not scattered randomly across the universe. They gather together not only into clusters, but into vast interconnected filamentary structures with gigantic barren voids in between. This “cosmic web” started out tenuous and became more distinct over time as gravity drew matter together. Astronomers for the ASPIRE program using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a thread-like arrangement of 10 galaxies that existed just 830 million years after the Big Bang. This deep galaxy field from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) shows an arrangement of these 10 distant galaxies marked by eight white circles in a diagonal, thread-like line. (Two of the circles contain more than one galaxy.) This 3 million light-year-long filament is anchored by a very distant and luminous quasar – a galaxy with an active, supermassive black hole at its core. The quasar, called J0305-3150, appears in the middle of the cluster of three circles on the right side of the image. Its brightness outshines its host galaxy. The 10 marked galaxies existed just 830 million years after the big bang. The team believes the filament will eventually evolve into a massive cluster of galaxies. These results were published in two papers in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on 29 June 2023. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, F. Wang (University of Arizona) Webb identifies the earliest strands of the cosmic web (annotated) Webb identifies the earliest strands of the cosmic web (annotated) Webb identifies the earliest strands of the cosmic web (clean) Raw images More images from the article (unofficial)