Then, not even a week later, anumber of groups found candidate galaxies ever farther away.
It’s not surprising, then, that we have yet another candidate.
But there’s a huge catch.
CEERS-1749could beone of the most distant galaxies we’ve ever seen.
Or it could be lurking much closer to home.
Paper day!!!
One of the most fascinating, potentially textbook-rewriting galaxies in the first JWST data.
“Schrodinger’s Galaxy Candidate: Puzzlingly Luminous at z17, or Dusty/Quenched at z5?”
It’s all aboutredshift.
To determine how far away a galaxy lies, astronomers study wavelengths of light.
Specifically, they’re interested in a phenomenon of light known as redshift.
So, ultraviolet light leaving a galaxy like Schrodinger won’t reach Earth as ultraviolet light.
And JWST has various filters, looking at distinct wavelengths of infrared.
On the first few pages – fewer red wavelengths – you won’t see a thing.
Then, as you turn through and the wavelengths become more red, the ghost of a galaxy appears.
Redshift is denoted by the parameterzand higherzvalues mean a more distant object.
One of theconfirmedmost-distant galaxies discovered to date, GN-z11, has azvalue of 11.09.
In the case of Schrodinger, the research team state it could have azvalue of around 17.
That would mean this light is from a time some 13.6 billion years ago.
But maybe we don’t need to break physics just yet.
Other galaxies in the region around Schrodinger all lie at about this distance.
It might even be that Schrodinger is a satellite galaxy of one of its more massive neighbors.
But wait, there’s more!
Check out our new paper as part of the@ceers_jwstcollaboration using data from#NASAWebband#NOEMA!
Work on this perplexing galaxy candidate is incomplete.
In particular, spectroscopy will allow astrophysicists to scrutinize its redshift more accurately.
