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New Delhi: The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has shown that the oldest galaxies in the universe were more disorganised than previously thought. These young galaxies, which were unstable and clumpy, were formed 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang and were full of intense star-formation activity. On over 250 of these galaxies, researchers at the University of Cambridge discovered that they were sculpted by turbulent gas flows and frequent mergers as opposed to smooth rotation.
The study indicated that this cosmic turbulence was necessitated by the strong bursts of star formation and gravitational interactions. These early systems were constantly moving and colliding, unlike the current spiral galaxies, which tend to be calm, and thus they could not settle on a fixed structure quite easily. These galaxies eventually developed into orderly forms that can be observed throughout the present-day universe as the process of star formation decreased and gas cooled down.
Scientists followed the movement of the ionised hydrogen gas in these young galaxies with the help of powerful infrared cameras of JWST. They indicated the presence of gas moving randomly in nearly all of them, implying a very disorganised surrounding. The majority of the galaxies remained in a state of chaos with gases blown out and flowing everywhere, as explained by the lead author, Dr Lola Danhaive. Very few of them showed evidence of early rotation and suggested the earliest movements towards systematic galactic organisation.
The results also trace an important shift – the reionisation period of the universe to the subsequent cosmic noon when the universe was the most active in terms of star formation. During the ageing of the galaxies, the gas cooled down, and the internal motions were made more organised. These then violent systems grew gentle and beautiful into their current forms of ellipticals and spirals over a billion years. The work provides a very graphic insight into the way the universe changed in its turbulent formations to the structured universe that we have today.
